Today’s adventure was a trip to the downtown shopping area of the city. We had a cabbie take us downtown and drop us off on one of the shopping streets downtown and we walked for a while. It was interesting but not particularly exciting. After walking a while we stopped and had some coffee.

Iced coffee

Then we walked down to a big Vietnamese market called Han Market on the banks of the Han River. Unfortunately we walked into the building at the food section of the market and the place was redolent with the smell associated with dried fish and a lot of very fresh fish on display. I did end up buying some peanuts. I have always liked the peanuts in Malaysia and I assumed these would be similar. They roast the peanuts longer there than they do in the states and they come out very crunchy. I was very proud of myself because I got exactly what I wanted and I bargained successfully to get the price down to what I was willing to pay.

As we made our way down the river, we found a place to grab a bite to eat and then we headed back to the hotel, but not before we got a cab to take us over the Dragon Bridge.

Dragon bridge

Jim has had a thing about driving over this bridge and for some reason the cabbies all avoid it. This time we had a plan. We would walk down the riverfront until we got to the street that crossed the bridge and hail our cab there. We made our way down the river in the 85°/125% relative humidity and got our cab. All the guy had to do was drive straight ahead and cross the river. I laughed my ass of as he turned right and drove down the near side of the river and took the next bridge. In the end Jim never got to ride over the damned bridge.