"Bac Ho" and "Tail and Testicle Hot Pot"

We went this morning to the Somerset Grand Hanoi (the sister hotel of the hotel we are staying at) to use their children's playground, as the children's playground here at the Westlake is still under construction. (Honestly, it looks nearly finished to me and each day I hope that they will let Max and Lana and Danny play on it, but, so far, no such luck.) There is also an international grocery store under the Grand Hanoi, so Tara (other Holt mom) and I took advantage of that to buy a few groceries while the kids played with David on the playground.

When we came back to our apartment, we made spaghetti for lunch (it was so nice to eat something recognizable and homemade), and then Lan fell asleep for a nap. David decided to go with the other Holt family to the Ho Chi Minh Museum and Mausoleum while Lana and I napped.

(This is now David relaying his experience) - We couldn't figure out how to get in to see the wax like body of Ho Chi Minh, or "Uncle Ho" as he is called here. The Ho Chi Minh complex includes the mausoleum, museum, presidential palace and the stilt house where Ho Chi Minh resided on the grounds of the presidential palace, and something called Mango Row which connects them. The stilt house is quite beautiful with remarkable woodwork and gigantic ravenous koi in the pond next to it. There are guards everywhere, and if you cross the white line they will blow their whistles and look fierce. Max (age 5) only got whistled at once. The museum is something truly to behold. The top floor has a bizarre collection of modern art and Ho Chi Minh quotes or sayings. There are strange replicas of Guernica and pieces of Chagall and Dali and Matisse prints. (Ho Chi Minh evidently met these painters when he was a cook in Paris in the 1920s, or was at least influenced by them, it was not clear). The museum is in strange contrast architechurally to the mausoleum. It is very modern while the mausoleum is stark, Soviet style utilitarianism. The gift shop sold a variety of Ho Chi Minh Memoribilia, along with a strange array of American products, like the child size shirt labeled, "Angel Boy American Sport." The grounds are beautiful and peaceful.

(This is Gretchen again.) Lana woke from her nap asking where her "ba"was. I was worried this would turn into a full-on meltdown, but, she didn't get upset. She just kept asking, "Ba? Ba?" about every 10 minutes. I tried to interest her in the Vietnamese version of Bugs Bunny we purchased yesterday, but, she is not at all interested in TV, at least not at this point in our attachment. So, we played with bubbles on the balcony for a while and then we went through her English language flash cards about 10,000 times. (She holds these up and insists that we say them to her. She won't repeat them for me at all - only for David, and only sometimes. But, she wants to hear the words over and over and over and over again.) Then she plastered her strawberry shortcake colorforms all over the balcony door, which kept her busy for about 20 minutes, and then we colored in her fake Disney coloring book (which we paid about 60 cents for and I am sure the Disney company didn't see a dime of. The complete and utter disregard for international copy right law is very curious to me.)

When David came home, he had purchased a packet of Ho Chi Minh post cards. Lana looked at the post cards and suddenly declared, "Bac Ho! Bac Ho!" (This means "Uncle Ho" in Vietnamese, their name for Ho Chi Minh.) Then she began to sing a song, the only words we recognized were "Bac Ho" and "Bac Ho" and "Vietnam" and "Vietnam". She sang this song very happily as she carried around her post card of Ho Chi Minh. I wish, truly wish, we had video of that event, but, sadly, we do not. However, whenever she sees the postcards she very earnestly says something that sounds like, "Bac Ho Viet Nam Ngan Nya." I am very very very curious what she is saying when she says this. She is very serious about it - which is strangely cute in a four year old. (It's probably something totally inappropriate in a four year old!)

When we began to get hungry we went down to the front desk to ask for the recommendation of a restaurant we could walk to. The doorman recommended a place called "Bep Viet" which means Vietnamese Kitchen. It was very close to the hotel walking along the lake side of the hotel, so, the doorman walked us in that direction until we could clearly see it. It is an open air restaurant with a large menu. We ordered some fried prawns for Lana and some more greens. (They were sold out of sweet potato buds, but, they brought mustard greens with garlic. Lana's love affair with greens is not limited to sweet potato buds, as she happily ate the mustard greens with garlic and ignored her fried prawns.) I was a bit suprised by the appearance of the fried prawns. They basically dipped the whole shrimp, eyes and legs and all, into batter and then deep fried it and covered it with tamirind sauce. Once I was able to separate the the shrimp meat from the eyes and the legs and the tail, I thought it tasted very good. Lana was less impressed. I also ordered beef with noodles which is a very common and tasty dish here. We were very curious where David's mullet fish was - and then. It arrived. Truly...I don't have any words. You are going to have to go over to the photobucket account and check itout. http://s140.photobucket.com/albums/r21/gretchenfaith/

I should note that I did actually eat some of this fish. I think you should all be proud of me for not running screaming away from the table with that fish looking at me like that. I will say that we did not order the most unusual item on the menu - the "Tail and Testicle Hot Pot." (No. I am not making that up, and no, I really don't want to know what it involves.)

When we walked back to the hotel, I showed the doorman the picture of Lana's face when she saw the fish. The doorman smiled at me politely and nodded and said, 'yes, she likes the fish'. I thought it was the doorman who had walked us down the restaurant, and afterwards Dave pointed out to me that it was NOT the same doorman, and that THAT doorman probably thinks we are insane for showing photos of our daughter to doormen out of the blue. Oh well.

Earlier today David purchased three cans of juice. One was dragon fruit juice, one was something called Basil Seed Juice (I swear I am not making that up, either. It's too weird to be fictional!), and the last one was passion fruit juice. Suffice it to say that only one of these is worth drinking. The basil seed juice (what on earth is a basil seed, aside from the obvious, which is, you know, that which you grow basil with?) - the basil seed juice was sickeningly sweet with "basil seeds" floating in a gelatinous goo. The dragon fruit juice was sickeningly sweet with bits of dragon fruit floating in a gelatinous goo. (We have eaten dragon fruit since we've been here, and it is much more enjoyable as a fruit than as a gelatinous drink.) The passion fruit juice takes very good, especially after the bizarre drinks that preceded it.

Well, it's time to get to bed. More from the land of basil seed juice and tail and testicle hot pot tomorrow.

Gretchen