Driving back into Hanoi

Four years ago a Vietnamese girl called Duong came to work on The Cube briefly.  I dropped her a line to see if she was in Hanoi but she wasn’t, so she suggested we meet up with her brother Dat instead.  He brought his lovely girlfriend Din who is studying medicine and wants to be a paediatrician but Dat says ‘when she graduates, she will cook my dinner and have my baby’.  I remember Duong telling me that her first child was a daughter and if her second baby wasn’t a boy it would be perfectly acceptable for her husband to leave her.  Dat came across as well educated and charming, but still pretty traditional.  Good luck Din.

Going to the restaurant, our taxi driver was pulled over by the police but when the policeman saw there were foreigners in the taxi, he let him off.  Our taxi driver was really happy and gave us a discounted fare.

At dinner Dat ordered four different types of spring rolls, each with its own distinct dipping sauce:

  • Freshly rolled spring rolls
  • Fresh roll-your-own spring rolls
  • Soft-rice-wrapping spring rolls
  • Crispy spring rolls

With fish noodle soup and a dessert of different coloured jelly pieces in ice and milk.  Yum.