Day 7 - fish pie review and further volunteers

So, off we set for grilled fish pie with Duong (pronounced 'swan'). We had to walk a way back up NiuTruc, which I walk along in the mornings. It's quite a dirty street so actually that was a bit of a sticky beginning. The restaurant was green and clean and serves only this one dish and the service was good. The food was delicious, light and very coriander-full and the 'fish-pie' very hot. It was actually more like a fondue, with the fish pieces fried with the spring onions etc at the table. There was also a smelly and important fish sauce of grey-purple hue to have with it. Ironically Duong hates it! she says its addictive too. I tried it, only one at the table who had some! It was quite nice in small doses, quite savoury. There was also regular fish sauce, which I initially thought was peanut sauce. Noodles were good, though it's surprising how often noodles seem to be cold or cool, am I missing something?  I also had a Hanoi Beer which was...beer. I will try a Saigon beer to compare, on Duong's recommendation, but then that's it. I much prefer passion fruit juice!

We were with other 'new' volunteers, and Arthur, who had tagged along and seems to have his sights set on either Rana or Duong.  I met Sam (female) in the office waiting for the others. She seems a bit older than the others, maybe near my age. She is American and is an intern like Nina, working on community development projects. She's been here two weeks and has been ill. We then met Rana's new roommate. She is Sara and she is Québécois Canadian and I think she is quite young, maybe 19! She certainly acts quite young in that loud American way. A conversation was had about pizza and KFC in Vietnam. She would not shut up for long in any situation I don't think. When I asked if she spoke French she said, "yes, perfectly" !  I'm not sure how I feel about her coming with us this weekend, though it could be amusing. Duong did say one of the reasons she liked her job was meeting people with different personalities. She got the dreary end yesterday eve I think. Duong has been here about 1 and a half years.  On the way back there was a 'do' at the Swedish embassy, and the number of black mercs and smart silver cars had tripled. Not so may as say for a Russian function tho, I would bet.

Off to Fanny's for ice cream this evening at 7pm. There are a lot of ice cream shops around here, apparently Vietnamese ice cream is really good. There is even a Family Cake' shop, with a cupcake logo, nearby, but it seems to be always closed. Im not sure why anyone would come to Vietnam and eat a cupcake, but on hearing about it Sara said " ooh I love cake and ice cream!" ......Sigh.

Saw chickens in a wooden cage this morning.  There are chicken legs, freshly chopped off, at most of the food stalls.  There are also mangosteen fruits, which are delicious and quite fun to eat. Have you heard of a druin? though? Apparently very strongly smelly and not so nice!  Dragon fruit everywhere, kiwis and possibly plums, kumquats and lychees. P.s. What is an Emblic fruit?

It's 32 degrees today, with rh of 60% ish. It's due to go up to 37 degrees over the weekend, so glad we are getting out of Hanoi! Stepping out in the mornings is similar to walking along the internal corridors of the spa at Botanico, hot and soft air. Generally smells a lot nicer at Botanico, though!