To Market, To Market: Food & Shopping Recommendations in Hanoi

 

#Travel # Hanoi

Vietnam Day 4

We planned to spend the day checking out some famous Hanoi old quarter streets known for their wares; Hang Gai (Hemp / Silk Street) and Hang Dau (Bags and Shoes) in particular. Many of the streets are named after the wares they sell, there is a silver jewelry street, and one that sells only chocolates, one with wooden handmade products like combs, spoons, etc. I forgot the name of the street which sells chocolates, but it is on the same street where the famous Bach Ma temple is located. Our day was exclusively set for shopping and indulging our taste buds.

We started with some street food right besides our homestay (Hanoi Old Quarter Homestay). We were recommended Bún Dậu Thập Cẩm and but maybe because the rice vermicelli noodle cake was served cold, the sausages and fried tofu were dripping oil, and the shrimp paste was quite pungent …we didn’t enjoy it very much.

I suggest going for fresh grilled dishes with rice/rice noodles and side dishes, instead of fried ones. We had a great time grilling our own food in one of those Korean style barbeque pavement joints (around the corner from our homestay) where we selected our own meat and veggies and had an exciting time listening to the sizzle on our stove grill and gobbling them down with chopsticks. This tabletop K Town grill experience is a must, especially for all the crazy K Drama fans!

For a quick bite while shopping, you can try Banh Xeo (Crispy Pancake) Vietnamese omelette loaded with all the goodies you can think of! One must savour steaming hot Banh Bao (easily available in any of the street food joints) and Salty Cheese Buns at King Roti (Really yum…melts in your mouth!). The liquid nitrogen infused cereal balls also known as Dragon’s Breath are also a fun treat if you want some great videos of vapours escaping your nose and mouth! It tastes okay and we were fine after eating. However, do not indulge little kids just to be on the safe side.

For lunch, you can try Noodle & Roll. They have a great menu to choose from including vegan options. We went there twice as it was right behind our alley and was quite reasonable. We got to finally try fresh Vietnamese Spring rolls (Goi Cuon), and they immediately registered into our favourite food list along with Bun Bo Nam Bo and grilled meat on lettuce wraps! Many a times we have had Bánh mì (Vietnamese Bread Sandwich with choice of fillings) for an early lunch. Make sure, you have it at a street joint popular with locals and fresh and hot. It is a safe bet and fills you up for all the walking around.

For dinner, the quintessential Vietnamese Pho is a must try, although you can get it everywhere throughout the day. If you want to eat at a good restaurant with a decently priced menu, I highly recommend Gecko. Must try their Fish/Veg options in lemongrass flavoured tangy sauce with a side of rice and Cinnamon and Honey tea for a drink. We could never try any of the high-end restaurants as we would always grab a quick bite of something while roaming around and then would not be hungry enough for a proper fine-dining experience! We also missed out Cha Ca La Vong, Vietnamese turmeric fish with dill and noodles. I suggest you don’t miss it… and try it when you are there!

Our meal at Gecko, Hanoi.Photo by Author

The coffee lovers can try all sorts of coffee here. I personally liked the cold versions of Vietnamese coffee and make sure you load yourself with the Vietnamese instant coffee sachets for a steaming cuppa wherever you go! My sisters tried Vietnamese local beer and found it quite light and breezy. There are all sorts of international fast-food joints around the Hoan Kiem Lake area, but we avoided them like plague to save space for local cuisine at all times. Best decision ever!

The entire Old Quarter is a shopper’s delight. It has all sorts of bric-a-brac and is a lucky treasure hunt sort of experience overall. We got some nice bargains for good fancy bags, shoes, clothes, and souvenirs. The Hang Gai Street tailors promise you a customised outfit in 24 hours at a good bargain. We can buy the Vietnamese traditional costume Áo dài for just around (250000 VND/ 773 Rupees/ 11 $), or you can get it custom made in pure silk for around Rs 4000/- (55 $).

The Hanoi Night Market area (personal favourite) is lively during the day also with shops where you can drive a hard bargain and come out smiling ear to ear! Beautiful dresses, shoes, trinkets, caps, hats, silk scarves and shawls, you name it …and the place’s got it!

Every minute we had, after our walking sight-seeing tours, we headed straight to Old Quarter to explore a new street each evening. The Dong Xuan Market is a wholesale market, you can skip it unless you are looking for some good quality leather bags (inspired design copies and not in your face fake).

The French Quarter is mostly a high-end shopping area with elegant French architecture and wide-open spaces and roads, a complete opposite of the Old Quarter, but showcasing another part of Hanoi history and lifestyle. Do try Mochi Ice-cream at Kem Trang Tien, while checking out the Trang Tien Plaza. We didn’t buy anything inside the plaza, but it provides the cleanest place for a toilet break in the area!

Human Farming: The Dystopian Novel Plots are Turning Real One by One!

 Human Farming: The Dystopian Novel Plots are Turning Real One by One! | by Anu maheshwari | Feb, 2025 | Medium

“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”: “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” Philip K. Dick

“There’s the story, then there’s the real story, then there’s the story of how the story came to be told. Then there’s what you leave out of the story. Which is part of the story too.” Margaret Atwood

Horrified at the new article I came across about enslaved and trafficked Thai women being injected with hormones and their eggs being harvested by Chinese gangsters in Georgia. A truly mafia-like cabal of global proportion! A globalised dystopian reality which cannot be unread/undone as it unfolds right before us.

While reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, I was plagued by nightmarish scenarios of it all coming true. With declining birth rates in countries across the globe, the situation is already at panic level. I somehow fail to understand this need to go to such inhuman lengths to ironically secure human survival.

The ideal approach would be to fix our family system itself which becomes a shackling strain for many women. Unless, both partners begin to actively contribute and support the relationship, the ‘family’ as we know it is set to dissolve. Without a support structure in place, it is difficult to raise a child. The proverb “It takes a village to raise a child” is absolutely true.

We need to make the entire ecosystem around a child better; from providing safe places at work to helping parents in need to providing equal pay for equal work to making parental leave for both parents mandatory to making our public spaces child friendly. Everything adds up and helps. The entire stigma around childbirth at workplace needs to go. Men still cannot give birth and men don’t menstruate, but they can empathize and be understanding towards those who do.

We are not at a stage and time where we can blame parenting for not being sensitive and humane enough. There is enough media available on these issues which one must come across on a daily basis. So, there is no hiding behind bad parenting if you still cannot get rid of toxic masculinity and shackles of patriarchal impositions.

What also helps is promoting farm fresh and organic food devoid of all chemicals and hormones. We need to immediately reduce the time and distance between the source and consumption of food items. Processed food items should not find an aisle in our lifestyle. That, in turn can also curb the rapid rise in cancer and lifestyle diseases which further lead to infertility in both men and women( there is nothing wrong with not wanting to reproduce, but I suppose if one wants and cannot, it becomes an issue which can topple governments and systems).

Every little change for the better contributes towards a better future. We need to seriously evaluate the very purpose of life. If the ultimate goal is happiness, the path might be closer and easier to achieve.

“Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose.” — C.S. Lewis

War, apartheid, misogyny, exploitation, consumerism, violence and the evils that plague our planet today are not part of some dystopian future, but very much present right here, right now. No avatar is standing on the horizon to rescue us anytime soon. Even the Avatars the internet is talking about are fictional ones. For now, we are the avatars and this is it. Let us live a better life.

“I was a warrior who dreamed he could bring peace. Sooner or later though, you always have to wake up.”

-Jake Sully.

Why Pakistan is Living in the Past? And Still Not Learning from the Past!

 First Published on My Medium Blog Why Pakistan is Living in the Past? | by Anu maheshwari | Feb, 2025 | Medium

The govt of Pakistan is celebrating shooting down of Indian fighter jet in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), 2019.

Why?

It is as if their administration has run out of things to celebrate.

No achievements, no success stories, no reason to celebrate for the entire country!

Last time they came together to celebrate something was their 2024 Olympic triumph in javelin throw inching ahead of India at second place.

Why does this country applaud guns, terrorism and religious extremism and not try to alleviate the condition of their citizens first. Are they so out of options that the only way to deflect the citizens from protesting their plight is to pick up a fight against their neighbour???

Image Source; SpiritualCleansing.Org

They are living on foreign aid and still buy guns and ammo to fight against a country which has never been an aggressor ever! India has never lifted a finger against Pakistan other than defending its own border and rampant acts of terror in Kashmir and even its metros by foreign mercenaries or jihadis trained in POK.

India didn’t even fight to get back the occupied territories in Kashmir because it valued the life of its own citizens first. India had all the reasons to go into POK and get it back. But at what cost? Our soldiers are motivated and trained for any eventualities, but our democratic government and citizens would never agree to put them through it in the first place.

“Who wishes to fight must first count the cost” The Art of War, Sun Tzu.

Pakistan Prime Minister has now decided to change his name if they don’t surpass India in economy and development. Seriously, he must be bored of his own name or perhaps too embarrassed of himself. Is he preparing to change his name and flee the country already like his predecessors? Perhaps he sniffed another military coup on the horizon. Is he so scared and afraid for his own survival that he relies on hate to fuel his ride to electoral victory?

And why defeat India? Why can’t you first stand on your own feet? For a few fist bumps and ill-driven electoral gains, you admit that your entire life agenda is based on revenge! It is pathetic! Compassion and love for your own countrymen and their well-being clearly don’t motivate you enough.

The only Pakistani man in power who had partly ditched this narrative around revenge and hatred against India and who batted for peace and sustainable relations was Mr. Imran Khan, a former international cricketer, and who is now behind bars under numerous baloney charges. The Pakistan army couldn’t digest his words of peace and decided to install a puppet in place once again.

To reach any level of development, one has to put some planning into action. One can’t lease entire province to another country (China in Gwadar and POK) in the name of economic development? Why would China develop Pakistan and help them? They are clearly there to secure their own economic and territorial expansion.

Creation of jobs? Many news reports from the area suggest that local people are not even allowed on their own land now. China is importing even the workers and officials for construction. China is not giving any grants (not even pretending) or running any charity missions in Pakistan or any other country. They invest and get the best out of other countries. Not that one can fault China for looking after themselves. The fault squarely lies on the heads of those in charge who sell their country in order to line their own pockets.

I have nothing but respect for my friends and people in Pakistan who have to survive all this. They are proud people who won’t speak against their country or perhaps can’t for the fear of censure and prosecution. I just hope their awaam/common people get fed up and rise together to bring about change in their system.

It has been more than 75 years since both India and Pakistan got their independence. Let us stop fueling this rhetoric of hatred and revenge to rile up the populace when all our people want is peace and opportunities to lead good life as neighbours. Focus on creating actual jobs instead of forcing your youth towards extremists’ camps and drugs with the lure of money and ‘jannat’. All the roads through the path of hatred and violence lead to hell.

India is moving ahead, and I wish the people in charge in Pakistan do the same.

The Great Indian Kitchen/Mrs.: The Future of Family System

 The Great Indian Kitchen/Mrs. : The Future of Family System | by Anu maheshwari | Feb, 2025 | Medium

“This is what I want”, Joan Brandwyn boldly asserts to Prof Watson in the iconic movie Mona Lisa Smile. The right to choose your own path to happiness regardless of your gender, is what it is all about.

I am not saying everybody in the world has or can have this privilege. There are financial obligations of course. Some amongst us who have found their vocation will call it financial freedom. There are people who would love to stay at home, take care of the household and indulge in their passion but are not able to for various reasons. But the entire hullabaloo is not about who is doing what! Let us keep gender aside for a moment…forever if we can!

The point is the attitude and lack of emotional support and understanding…the point is the lack of freedom to choose your path…the point is that we are missing the whole point!

I have only watched the original Malayalam movie The Great Indian Kitchen of which Mrs. is the Hindi remake. That movie is a masterpiece! The sheer frustration and disgust that the director was able to evoke from the audience just from the depiction of the never-ending cycle of mundane tasks that the ‘wife’ goes through without respite is brilliant. The intent is not to prove that household work is menial, as the house-help and the aunt were doing the same tasks and not seemingly bothered. The house-help even hummed-aloud doing her ‘job’. However, the ‘wife’ had no agency in that marriage and was a slave in that house.

Even within the boundaries of that traditional family set-up, the ‘husband’ could have empathized, helped and listened when she expressed her desire to work. She could have worked and been happier. Both could have run the household together with senior members contributing to a perfect environment for every human being inside that house. But the weight of superstitions, baggage of ‘man-made traditions’, internalization of patriarchal impositions and the confluence of all things wrong is what erodes that family and most of the families today. The end result is outright revolt where men and women fear marriage and all that paraphernalia that weighs them down after it.

The only way family systems can survive is if it evolves with time and takes the best of traditions along. Family system should act as a support structure, a safe place not otherwise. Traditions are good to have if superstitions are filtered away. Bigotry, hypocrisy and herd mentality have no place in the comfort of a home and family. Families should only have individuals who respect and value each other and help navigate the ups and downs of life together.

Boss Babies Who Never Grow Up! Pets: love with responsibility and commitment

 Boss Babies Who Never Grow Up! Pets: Love with Responsibility and Commitment | Medium

Are you familiar with a movie called Boss Baby about corporate manufactured babies who drink secret baby formula to gain intelligence yet remain as babies?

I think my bossy beagle is one of them!

He is blessed with cuteness unparalleled and wants tender love and care 24/7 and would fall over your feet hankering for a generous belly rub every time he sees you.

Designed by the Author using Microsoft Designer

These guys are cuteness overload and have a capacity for whining their way into everything they want and into every space they want to get into. They are tiny bundles of joy with bottomless pit for a tummy.

NO, I AM NOT EXAGERRATING!

Sleeping Mishko as a puppy! Photo by Author

You bring out anything remotely edible in the household, these super sniffer hounds will magically materialise before you and they will look into your soul begging for a taste. Their innocent stare will knock down all your defenses and you will hand them whatever they want. No matter what the size of the treat is, it will be gobbled up before two shakes of a lamb’s tail as these cuddle monsters lack a system for elaborate chewing. Sometimes, one wonders if they sniff the food directly into their tummies.

My bossy 3-year-old beagle is named Mishko and other beagle parents have informed me that these guys tend to mellow down once they turn four. My beagle is as such very well-behaved contrary to the popular opinion about them. He is super intelligent and senses out emotions and moods and behaves accordingly. He even takes permission before waking us up in the morning, i.e., if we as much as look into his direction and smile, he will run into us at the speed of light.

He doesn’t touch anything that doesn’t belong to him and sleeps all day unless he is called, required or if he finds something interesting enough to pique his curiosity. He loves to play with nice people and growls at anyone who insults his intelligence and disrespects him. He is too smart to do menial tasks without reward and has a mind of his own. He remembers people who are good to him and loves them wholeheartedly. He instinctively knows if you are feeling sad and cuddles up to you if you want company. He is as his name suggests ‘God’s ideal gift’ in Russian. My daughter had allergy issues before, but Mishko cured that for her somehow.

Although, these beautiful creatures make our lives better, many people are not aware of the tremendous amount of care these wonderful beings require.

Just like babies and children, they need love, time and attention. They have inclinations, tendencies and requirements unique to their breed and personalities. One cannot keep them as props to satisfy one’s whims and fancies. They are not genies who present themselves only when you beckon. These babies will be part of your family and need total commitment from each member. They are not wild animals who can survive on their own. They are your companions and member of your pack.

Mishko Looking at the Langurs outside. Photo taken by Author

After Mishko joined us, we haven’t taken a flight together as family as we don’t want him to be traumatized in the airplane. We travel by road everywhere and Mishko has the entire backseat reserved for him. He cannot do without a window seat!

They also have their own language, and we need to learn that to communicate and read their thoughts. Of course, there can be misunderstandings as with any form of communication. We need to be patient and kind if we decide to adopt them into our lives. I wish and hope that people adopt pets into their lives only if they are willingly to commit themselves to these babies for the entirety of their lifetime.

What’s Love Got to Do with It? Is being in love more about yourself than the other person?

 What’s Love Got to Do with It?. Is being in love more about yourself… | by Anu maheshwari | English Vinglish | Mar, 2025 | Medium

Have you ever been in love or are you in love? It is said to be the most wonderfully uplifting emotion.

Photo of Dandelion shaped light installations at the Sunworld Theme Park, Halong, Vietnam. Photo by Author.

Yesterday, I was listening to a friend of mind going on and on about the expectations she had from her boyfriend who she calls the ‘love’ of her life…I asked her why she had so many expectations from this person. Her answer was, “why should I continue to love him if he can’t make me happy?”.

I was stumped, confused, and didn’t know what to say. She is my friend, and I will always be supportive but the feeling she has for her boyfriend…can it be called ‘Love’?

Are we using this word correctly?

Does the emotion of love have anything to do with the other person? Isn’t it something you feel inside you? Can you expect a person to change who they are for you or agree with you all the time? Why do we expect the other person to go over the mountains and catch the moon and the stars? Wouldn’t it be more liberating to be happy with each other regardless?

There is a need for a DISCLAIMER here for the married ones- I am not talking about daily chores and contribution to the household responsibility in a marriage. That’s totally different! There are things you got to do when you got to do! There are promises and contracts involved. It is legal and binding 😊.

I am talking about the feeling of being in love which so many of the great poets and authors have tried to capture in words.

My favourite quote on love is from Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It is the one which makes me smile each time I read it.

“Having begun to love you, I love you for ever — in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself.”

Some have described love as something so alive that it makes them lose their sanity. For them love is all consuming and one has no control over anything anymore. Like Homer in Iliad says,

…There is the heat of Love, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover’s whisper, irresistible — magic to make the sanest man go mad.”

On the other hand, we have a more magically real Gabriel García Márquez who feels,

“It’s enough for me to be sure that you and I exist at this moment.”

And like Leo Tolstoy holds in Anne Karenina,

“I’ve always loved you, and when you love someone, you love the whole person, just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.”

Whatever said and done, the whole world wants to be in love! No matter what they go through for love, I have not come across anyone who says they don’t want to be in love.

“It is better to love wisely, no doubt: but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.”

― William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair

To be honest, I feel the vast majority wants someone to be in love with them. They want to be the object of affection and passion. They equate being in love with loss of power in a relationship. They want to be worshipped and put on a pedestal and be treated with awe and admiration. And then, when the awe and admiration wane off, all that’s left is emptiness.

Is that really love or just our own aspiration, our want and desire? Does it have anything to do with love?

Is that why emotions in unrequited love never wane off? We free the other person completely and the feeling stays inside us, making us warm and fuzzy forever.

Or is this why when you are away from your love for far too long …the seemingly unending separation…memories build up, aches heighten your senses, and a familiar melody, a tune that resonates deep translate into words soon…

I waited for you in earnest…

Stories I read, tales I spun in my dreams,

The love I felt growing each day in anticipation…

The day my eyes fell upon you; I knew…

Like a moth that flies towards the flame,

The snowflake that falls on your fingertips for warmth alone,

I forgot the world around

I leapt for you with all I had

Pure joy lifting me up, raising me above silly ruses…

Against aches that held me ransom to worldly values

All the love…only love…

Bliss… love… if this is what it is

Little the rest matters,

I will shine bright as the fading star that leaves the sky forlorn

again, and again…

to set my eyes upon true love.

…

Whatever. What do I know, anyway. Only as far as I know…

Do you have any ideas on love?

What’s your favourite quote on love?

The above poem titled ‘Love at First Sight’ is my own and previously published on my personal blog Only As Far I Know, July 2020.