Massage by feel

In Thailand blind traditional masseurs are not unusual. Now they've found their way to Hanoi.

I'm a soft spot for a massage and often measure the civilisation of a town or city by the quality of their masseurs.

Well Hanoi has some well-trained masseurs, they are overwhelmingly women and they work the Nha Nhnis - or guest houses where men can hire a room, and a masseuse, by the hour.

Not my deal. And if you don't want to go to the spas and beauty parlours that have now opened in Hanoi (quite OK masseurs there) where to go?

My friends took me to a centre off Ngoc Khanh street in Ba Dinh, now Hanoi's diplomatic quarter. Its a plain double story building, unadorned cement and tile inside and - at 10 am pretty quiet. Hahn welcomes me whilst my friend Nam Huong explains in Vietnamese the kinks in my neck and the missing bits of my lower back - necessary as I couldn't go into such detail with my basic Vietnamese.

Upstairs there are basic, screened off rooms; Vietnamese women often bring their own pyjamas to wear (in Thailand you'd be given a pair). The massage is rougher around the edges than what I'm used to in the best places in Thailand, where massage's elevation to a temple art, experienced practice and a demanding middle class have refined approaches, techniques and reading the body rather than following a learnt technique.

But the young blind masseur has the basics in hand, so to speak, and the style here has echoes of that in Thailand, a mix of acupressure, muscle pressure/squeezing and stretches. He also uses a local balm and a heat lamp when massaging my back.

From next door I hear the constant beating of wood and a bell. the masseurs tell me its a private house where they practise buddhist blessings for young couples seeking the right partner for marriage.

At night its clear the centre is more than a workplace as the young masseurs, mostly from the countryside, eat and sing and play guitar together in between massage gigs.

Worth a try. But take Vietnamese friends with you the first time. I'm working out how to give some useful feedback through my friends. Prices are ridiculously low - less than two Australian dollars for an hour's massage. So, as its an institution which supports the blind through skills training I'd make a much larger donation each time.

How to find it: Tam Quat cua Nguoi Mu (Massage by the Blind) is in in Ngo (Alley) 94 off Ngoc Khanh Street in Ba Dinh, on the same side as, and about 100 metres west of the Ngoc Khanh hotel.

Neon nights - Fast Food and Wifi Free

In Hanoi you can be blinded by neon lights but still fall into holes on the street because you can't see. Electricity demand is soaring in Vietnam and supply breakdowns have been reported this week in the English-language Vietnam News. Due to low water levels in the rivers feeding Vietnam's hydro-based system industry needs have had to be prioritised around the country. In private life airconditioning units are crawling all over the new apartment towers in Hanoi. But I reckon flashy neon lights are eating into the grid too. "Fast food and WiFi Free" says one neon sign on Ngoc Khan Street. I sure hope so. And they have a Christmas Tree, actually a pile of flashing decorations smothering the plastic pine. It all started with the charming fairy lights so loved in this part of the world; they curled around tree trunks and spread out to the branches to create a charming ambience. But with development on the run across Hanoi in construction, cafes and services charm ain't enough, you need noise. So at night multicoloured neons flash, beckon, scream for attention from hotel roofs, cafe gates and side alley shops. Giant plasma screens shimmer at street intersections blinding motorbike riders at red lights with the latest in mobile phones, DVDs and other techno tasties. In all this visual noise many Hanoians still steal electricity, plugging illegally into distribution boxes; messy ganglions of electricity wires still net their way along the streets. Along with a clean water system and a modern sewage system (current infrastructure installed by the French) Hanoi's utilities drag behind the reality of a lit up town.

Eating, eating, its all about eating

Ah its a story to chew on. Vietnamese food is a mix of remarkable influences from over the millenia - Indian, Thai, Cambodian, Chinese to name a few. But the country's regions have developed a distinctly Vietnamese culinary style. And there is no better place to try it than - everywhere - on the street, in small cafes, a lakeside eatery, in elegant colonial houses and in friends' houses.

So here's a (continuous - so come back) menu of recent taste sensations:
The best pho ga (chicken noodle soup) in Hanoi at 34 Le Van Huu street, opens for breakfast to around 1pm, and still presided over by matriarch May Anh. In Australia we are used a chicken noodle soup south Vietnamese style, with lots of aromatic herbs. But here in Hanoi its the REAL deal: a rich chicken broth filled with rice noodles and spring onions, chewy beignets on the side, to which you can ask for an egg to be dropped in. Then add lime, chili or garlic as you wish. And a beer or water if its lunch time. All for around .75 cents. I was lucky, the youngest of the family still recognised me after a decade!

Au Lac House in a renovated French villa in the city's centre and a large spin off from the owner's Au Lac Cafe on Ly Thy To Street. Its a place to celebrate the new life of a Vietnamese Australian friend who has come back to Hanoi. We try soft shelled crab in tamarind sauce, banana flower salad and Hue specialty rice cakes stuffed with shrimp. And there is a remarkable range of international wines on offer. We try (at last!) New Zealand Cloudy Bay Sauvignon which, at current US/Australian dollar rates, was pretty good value. All in all a great place to try good Vietnamese food in a great location.
Au Lac House is centrally located at 13 Tran Hung Dao Street, Tel (84) (4) 933 3533.

The West Lake (Ho Tay) has a slew of restaurants on the water.
Recently, city authorities extended the lakeside road so it now rings the entire lake and a public walkway built. Gardens have been planted along the wide footpath on the south-western side.
In the construction boom starting in the early 1990s houses were illegally built on the road to and around the lake.
A Vietnamese friend and I note the illegal fishermen on their jerry-built piers already hauling in fish whilst at the northern end local authorities are just setting out to inspect their domain. We settle in at a local eatery and order chewy steamed water snails, susu leaves from the hills of Tam Dao or Sa Pa in the north, grilled soft shelled shrimps (to die for) - all with their distinctive dips based on salt/pepper/lemongrass/fish sauce. The staff are attentive and thoughtful - even offering us a fresh table whilst they clear up the detritus that is the sign of a Vietnamese meal that has been enjoyed.
At around Aust$3-4 a dish this is great value.

Speeding on Vietnamese coffee

Stock markets can rise and plunge again while you wait for coffee made Vietnam-style. Easy to forget in modern Vietnam that coffee-drinking is not just a sensory experience, its still considered a social ritual to take time over.
In my friends’ house in Ba Dinh in Hanoi’s north western area near the Ngoc Khanh Lake I wait for my first coffee. Vu places a small aluminium dripolater with pin-size holes on top of a demi-tasse cup. In goes the coffee – top quality Arabica Robusta from the Central Highlands -and he adds boiling water.
Then we practice Tieng-Anh– Vietnamese to English conversation.This is the deal my friends and I have struck.
I will converse in my poor Vietnamese – forgotten after a decade’s non-use, and the three 'young ones' in the family will speak in English. An English-Vietnamese dictionary is permanently perched on the refrigerator in the kitchen where we eat and chat.
Ah, now the first cup of coffee is ready. But the boiling water has got lost through the pinholes and the coffee is cold. We add more hot water and I drink it too fast.
"How much coffee did you put in?" I ask. "Five teaspoons," Vu says. Kaboom goes my head and I'm speeding already. Probably the only way to face my first day in Hanoi, now a city permanently on the move on motorbikes.