Hanoi - Vietnam

Yesterday - 20 March
We arrived in Hanoi yesterday afternoon.  After getting situated into our hotel, we went for a little walk around the hotel.  Nearly everyone in the city rides a motorcycle/scooter!  There was a constant stream of bikes across the roads had the pedestrians taking their lives in their hands when they attempt to cross a street.

The way to get across is to slowly start walking into the stream and letting them flow around you.  Do not run and do not panic.  If you are with a group walk side by side crossing slowly and you will be successful each time.

Today - 21 March
Today we started out at 8:30a to stand in line for Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum.  We stood in line in a light drizzle for about an hour waiting to walk past him in his tomb which took all of 5 minutes to view.  The Vietnamese are very serious about Uncle Ho.  There is a lot of French architecture around the square where the mausoleum is situated.

We then took a tour through the gardens and saw the 2 houses that he lived in and the cars that he drove.  He is the 'father' of the nation as he helped bring the people their independence from the French.

Next we went to the Museum of Ethnology.  This was very interesting in that it showed the different tribes that make up the Vietnamese people.  It is a hands-on museum where we could walk into stick or mud houses and see how the people live even today. 

We also got to see a performance of the ancient Vietnamese art of water puppetry.  It is wooden puppets remotely controlled under water through the use of bamboo sticks by people hidden behind a curtain in the center of the water. 

We then had lunch at a nice restaurant called Koto that is a non-profit restaurant that helps street and disadvantaged youth.  The food was very good and the wait staff were friendly.

Today, Karel became a millionaire for the first time in his life.  The Vietnamese dong is valued at 18,000 to $1.00 USD.  So he took about $100 from the ATM and received 2,000,000 VDN!!!

After lunch we went to the infamous Hoa Lu prison (known as the 'Hanoi Hilton') which is now a small museum.  As with all prison of war locations, you can imagine some of the conditions and facilities were not optimal.

We then took a walk through some of the Old Quarter streets which are aptly named for the items that they sell on these streets, such as luggage street, paper street, sunglasses street and shoes street.  We then walked through the wholesale market where you could buy just about anything you could imagine - mostly fakes and knock offs of the real thing!!

And now a cold beer is calling us!!  We are going to meet up with Mike and Nina and decide where to go for dinner.

Tomorrow, we are on our own and will do a bit more exploring of the city.  In the evening we board the overnight train for the next part of our adventure.

TTFN,
Deb & Karel