Vietnam - Northern part

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Seppy wrote the story in the other blog, so here are a few pics to go with it

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Photos

view of lake
yes, there is a person under that hat - apparently only the women wear that shaped hat

Comm statue
Got to love the communist statues - starting to make a collection of them

oldest temple
The main man in Hanoi couldn't build the defensive walls in the right place - they kept falling down. Luckily for him he had a bit of divine intervention inside here and the walls stayed up - any budding DIYers might visit here too

water puppets
Only the front 5 rows could actually see anything (there were 30 rows in the theatre) and it was all in Vietnamese - still the foot tall puppets were entertaining

lilly pond
After getting his walls straight, he decided to say thanks and built this pagoda (and nice lily pond too)

russian tour
who said russians don't have a latin temperment - count the smiling faces :-)

onstreet badminton
Late at night, while hanging round street corners, the teenagers engage in some....street badminton! Seriously, the courts were everywhere, even on traffic islands.

Safe
in room safe - bummer if you lose the key

cyclo
The best way to get around. Personally I think it is a cross between a wheelchair and a bicycle (Seppy's driver was faster btw)

classic sail ship
The boat we were staying in - our cabin was at the ehm "front" of the boat.

Halong bay
I admit the scenery was very impressive - this photo was from the entrance to a cave

our tour guide
The line:"I know the trip is 2 day and 1 night, but dont treat me like tour guide, treat me like friend" has to be the most memorable intro to a minibus of tourists on the way to halong bay

The top deck
ready for Seppy

Seppy relaxing
on the top deck of course

Cave
It was an impressive cave but it quickly became clear that it was really about trying to see the shapes of animals and flowers in the rocks - sort of the same if you were looking at fluffy clouds. I wonder what they'd make of moving statues. Still, it raises the question of what drugs have been taken - anybody see the image of Beckham in the rocks?

warning sign
I heard that one of the most difficult things about learning english is the fact that adding another word can completely change the meaning - they didn't do too bad here