hairy motoring in Hanoi

---

hello hello hello from hanoi, tis loud an annoying here, streets are craxy where people wont move out of your way will walk over u an sminilng is a an unpopular hobby for the people! not so good
so since my last entry iv done a bit. we wne on a day trip on the Mekong Delta. was a lovely day out. we headed on with the tour conmpany 'happy tour' and boy was it happy. it was such laugh, i nearly passed out for lack of air en route! the tourguide was this ickle Ho Chi Minh- ese fella who was tru to the adverts, a happy guy, reminded us of jack from will and grace soap. we stopped to visit the happy room on several occasions to sing a song.- two guesses what that entailed. we had stories about how the boys and girls in Ho Chi Minh date, from tactics of breaking hard at the traffic lights to get her to grab on tighter to the tax rate on new cars , amid his frequent giggling, and he was so tiny. and he kept having a little jog round the place and chatting away to himself. as fr the Mekong, twas beautiful, we visited 3 islands, unicorn , phoenix, and like a coconut island but not sure -may have been called turtle island. we tasted tea, honey, rice wine (toughy stuff), fruits, had local village people sing(not the band), saw beautiful flowers, had lunch, had a trip up a stream, -craxy squished in with lots of boats, nearly eded up on our way to cambodia util our guide spotted us and we got on teh right boat, played with a snake (a python), learned about honey, and we ate coconut candy - which was made as we ate , wverything was cocunut, ornaments, sweets, huts, bags, the whole shabang, family run bsuiness, eat and drink coconut every day- funny.
so back to Ho chi min. next day we visited the war reminants museum, we were there maybe 4 hours. hard to put into words, its a collection of pictures, some tanks and weapons, comments and relics from the war in vietnam. really i was sorry i ate before i went, you had to take breaks after each room of photos just to kinda relax, after a sort of shock, horrific images. information on the poisonous gases used to kill people and forage, gases which were all the colours of the rainbow, each doing somthing more harmful. we even saw foetuses in jars, showing the unbelievable deformaties induced by orange gas exposure. i dont know what to say about it really, i have to draw breath even thinking about those images now the millions of lives (3 million died, 4 million injured-not counting the after affects) generally loss of people and vegitation was greater than world war 2. i dont know how americans can come here and visit, the feeling of guilt must be overwhelming, there was lists of appologies and comments from people of the USA saying how ashamed they were. it was too much info to take in, forms of torture that make every bit of you wince. it took a bit out of us. in a way its amazing, shocking how the people here can welcome visitors from theUSA, i cant imagine how i could unkless they had some sort of documentation proving they were anti-war or somthing. anyway im rambling, and really cant explain distressing fellings most people who go there may feel, and i think you'd be better of not knowing really.
anyway on for happier things, well this is an account of my tavels so i aint deleting, grin and bare it!
since that we flew to Hanoi, landed at night and had major dificulty finding room at the inn! there were no inns open at 1am or 2 or 3 for that matter, thank god mary and joseph chose jerusalem not vietnam for accommadation! but eventually, with an english guy, we wandered across some very dodgy people, in very unusual humours (not induced by anything leagal) and we had no option to follow one itailan guy who promised us a room. safety in numbers anyway and we got there, eventually, after he realied hed walked the long way round a lake to get there.
so this is day two, we changes hotels from our nasty, smelly, ugly one to a cleaner brighter nicer one and booked a 3 day tour ro HaLong Bay tomorrow for some sight seeing, swimming, kyaking, a night on a boat and good food- i hope. should be fun,
just found a fab cafe, -chocolate heaven! oh my god i just had three deserts. crissy thinks im crazy - bout chocolate and in general really.
otherwise this city is my least fav place so far. they are nor smiley friendly people, the walk or moto over you - and thats sayin somthing considering they think we are massive - our happy guide told us so. the beeping is crazy, the taxis' have theses reverberating horns which echo through the night and the all seem bloody rude. ists best to walk acrioss the road without looking - so many millions of motos (mopeds) .that way they are forced to stop and you dont loose a few years of your life with panic! we did have fun getting moto taxis aroud the last city - wouldnt fancy it here,.
so im off and will be back to inform you of HaLong bay. and sleeping on a boat for the night!-
toodles hoe all are well, thanks for all the comments. they were all lovely!

toodles.xxx gracie

---