2009年3月22日星期日

Out of Beijing bedlam and into Hanoi massage in beijing heaven

Out of Beijing bedlam and into Hanoi massage in beijing heaven
There is no cereal, no yoghurt, no fruit, no juice: just Massage in Beijing tea and coffee, a slab of yellow sponge that has egg-like qualities, bread so hard you could tile the roof of the Forbidden City and some soggy waffles and syrup.
Hiding at the end of the breakfast display, which features whole pumpkins and plastic strawberries, is a large bowl of steaming oatmeal. Oh joy. I ask the ever-smiling but clueless girl in an apron behind the counter for two scoops and to ladle in some syrup.
The first mouthful is so disgusting I spit it out. It's syrup, but not as we know it. They must have run out of syrup, too, and replaced it with peanut oil. Well, it looks the same and is of like consistency, and they probably figure we'll never know the difference.
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Suffice to say that after working for 31 days straight from 8am to midnight at the Olympics I am jack of Beijing and the food. Next stop is Vietnam for some much-needed R&R. On the three-hour flight to Hanoi I dream of fluffy croissants, baguettes, green mango salad, caramelised fish, French wine and cheese. Hmmm, cheese.
Without warning the Hanoi Massage in Beijing taxi driver pulls over midway to the hotel and starts gibbering that in addition to the airport-to-city flat fee we have to pay him a toll.
The driver is trying it on and rather than just smile and nod, knowing the hotel staff would sort him out at the other end, I start arguing the toss over what amounts to $5. It is madness, but that's what happens when you haven't had a day off for a month.
The meet-and-greet staff at the Hanoi InterContinental Westlake see off the pesky taxi driver much as annoyed parents would dismiss a misbehaving child and they scoop me up like a bird that has hit a glass panel.
I cry when we finally shut the door on our hotel room because it is just so quiet and clean and beautiful.
The Hanoi InterContinental is a new, low-rise resort-style hotel 10 minutes by taxi from the heaving city metropolis and 30 minutes from the airport. It is built out over smooth and still West Lake, Hanoi's largest, and the view from our balcony is cool and calming.
For the next three days I don't leave the hotel; everything I need is inside its protected walls and the staff treat me like royalty recovering from surgery.
After the horror of my peanut oil-laced porridge in Beijing, my first breakfast at the InterContinential is sublime. Butter-drenched crunchy croissants, silky smoked salmon, fluffy eggs that taste like eggs and discreet staff who make coffee to die for. Breakfast proves so exhausting I have to go back to bed until lunch, and so begins a worrying routine whereby for three days I revert to an infant's schedule. Breakfast, sleep; lunch, sleep; dinner, sleep. A swim, Massage Beijing and lakeside cocktails are squeezed into my few waking hours.
I begin fantasising how cool it would be to live permanently in the hotel. I could go to a different restaurant every night, each within five minutes of my bedroom door. Vietnamese tonight? No, let's do Italian. Or French. Don't mind as long as it's not Chinese. And I could drink as much wine as I liked because the staff would always be on hand to steer this invalid back to her room. I could while away the afternoons by the pool or in the library studying the life and works of Renoir and his impressive friends from large, handsome books that never collect any dust.
I could get fit again in the gym and do laps in the pool. I could watch the latest movies, surf the net on my balcony, retreat to the lake each evening for sunset drinks ...
By day four this surreal fog begins to lift and I am starting to feel I could leave my island oasis without combusting into an argument with a taxi driver or walking into a glass panel.
It must be time to see Massage in Beijing Hanoi.

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