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Published: April 25th 2012
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We departed Luang Prabang feeling relaxed, and really looking forward to more reunions with friends. Due to a change of plan our original few days visit to Hanoi could now be stretched to about ten days. With the people we wanted to see and some places we intended to visit this worked out well. We went form feeling a bit rushed to knowing we had plenty of time.
The French Connection flew with us to Hanoi. They had some tours organised, plus some free time to meet some of our friends. Then they were off on a 10 day tour, until we planned to meet again in Siem Reap.
Catching Up Destiny has seen us make a lot of friends who come from Hanoi. Destiny has also led some of our friends to move there as well. Over the coming days we caught up with as many people as we could.
It was great to catch up with Chung and John Smith, plus our mutual friends, Ha, Linh and Chau. John got his name from the fact that Smith was the most common name in the Sydney phone book until the huge influx of Vietnamese migrants back
in the 1980’s. The family name Nguyen then took over from Smith taking up far more pages in the phone book from then on.
So, while Chung and Hieu lived in Sydney I decided to re-name him Mr John Smith. John seemed to accept his Aussie name proudly and I must admit it brings a smile to my face every time I address him.
We were also delighted to be able to stay with our dear friends Hang and Mike, which meant we got to spend a lot of time with our one and only Dhamma Daughter, Maya. Plus, we met Hang’s mother and also had the pleasure of meeting Mike’s buddy Peter.
We made the most of our time with friends, enjoying food, wine and good company. We also made time to visit our heroes in Hanoi, the folks at the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. We have been supporting this charity since we first visited Vietnam in 2007 and find they do absolutely amazing work. Please take a look for yourselves at their website ….
http://www.streetkidsinvietnam.com/ Red River Cruise After reading about cruises on the Red River on the blog of a Hanoi local
I have always wanted to make time for this cruise. For US$15 it is good value and includes lunch. It visits a number of pagodas, plus a ceramic village.
We were lucky while visiting the Pagodas because it was a special day to celebrate the “Mother Goddess”. We got to witness some of the events. There were lots of spirit mediums in the pagodas invoking various deities. It was very interesting. We were given some “lucky money” by one of the mediums and I hope it works (it will supposedly will bring me more riches).
You can read more about the Mother Goddess here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%!C(MISSING)3%!A(MISSING)An_%!C(MISSING)4%E1%!B(MISSING)B%!n(MISSING)g You can read more about the Red River Cruise here
http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Red-River-Delta/Hanoi/blog-305454.html
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