GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!!

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Good Morning Vietnam!! We arrived in Vietnam about a week ago, and I still love waking up and saying that lol.

When we arrived in Vietnam, the first thing that struck me was that there were no longer any beggers at the side of the road, or homeless people sleeping under make shift homes. Of course there are still hawkers around, but instead of trying to sell you postcards and mini Taj Mahals, there are people everywhere trying to sell you street food.... which you tend not to mind quite so much 😉

The flight from Kathmandu to Kuala Lumpur was good, we got to see Everest again so we were very spoilt. We also flew past several lightning storms on the way in to Kuala Lumpur, which was slightly scary, but made for some amazing photos! We had a 10 hour lay over in Kuala Lumpur so we left the airport and checked in to a hotel for the night. As a result we didn't get to see much of Kuala Lumpur, but the few locals we did meet, and the few places we did see, looked fantastic, definitely somewhere I would go and visit in the future.

The flight from Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi didn't start off too well.... we all boarded the aircraft, only to get a strong smell of petrol wafting through the plane... and half an hour later we were told there was a fault and we all had to disembark and wait for another aircraft. This actually worked out to our advantage though, because our original plane didn't have an individual TV for each seat, whereas the new one did... I was happy (I got to watch Man of Steel... swoon lol).

When we got to Hanoi we grabbed a taxi and headed to our hotel... turns out we were actually pretty lucky with the taxi we chose because he was genuine, and didn't try to rip us off, however this is a rare occurrence in Vietnam, and since we have been here we have heard lots of horror stories about taxis taking a couple of loops of the city before finally dropping you at your destination, just so that they can bump up the meter.

On our first evening in Hanoi we got our first taste of Vietnamese food. The hotel had recommended a place just up the road and it was amazing!! Dad and I had a fried pancake with beef, but this isn't anything like a Western pancake, it was beansprouts and beef with a kind of thin batter over it and then you chop it all up and stuff it in a rice pancake.... If I have lost you in that description, all you need to know is that it was YUMMY!!! (In fact we went back on our last night in Hanoi for some more lol). We also went a little out of our comfort zone and tried one of the iconic street food kitchens you find in Vietnam. This was certainly an experience, the owner pointed at several things, but didn't speak English, so we just said yes to everything and tried it all. After we found a seat (more like a tiny crate that you balance on) she brought the food out to us. The floors of these kitchens are very dirty because its impossible not to spill food everywhere when you are eating these messy dishes, but again you are in food heaven as soon as you tuck in, so you tend not to care. Most of these street kitchens sell only one or two dishes, and they spend years perfecting these dishes, so you can imagine it is awesome! I was told before we came to Vietnam that the Vietnamese food tries to balance flavours and textures.... mission accomplished Vietnam!

In Hanoi there is lots to see (as well as food bliss)... we started off by heading to Hoan Kiem Lake where the legendary turtle lives. The story goes that an emperor who had been given a sword from the deities to help win the war, was fishing on the lake one day with the sword when a turtle came up from the lake and took the sword from him to return it back to the deities. Apparently there is still a turtle in the lake that is suppose to be a descendant of the legendary turtle... we walked around the lake and its temple but we didn't see any sign of him unfortunately.

After the lake we moved on to the the Women's Museum, I was actually really surprised to find how much I enjoyed this. The museum has some fantastic films interviewing Vietnamese women and their families. It was really interesting to learn about a typical Vietnamese woman's life and how quite often the families live very far apart, in order to be able to make enough money to support themselves.

Hoa Lo Prison was also fascinating. We were able to visit the cells where the Vietnamese were kept during the French regime and we got to see the tiny sewage tunnels that many escaped through... I definitely would have been left behind, there was no way I would have fit through the tunnel 😞 The cells were really eery, the prisoners would be chained by their feet at one end and then from there the floor would tilt backwards so if the prisoners lay down, the blood would rush to their heads. The prison also had a section on the American prisoners who were kept there during the war, which was also very interesting.

After the prison we went to the Temple of Literature, which is the nations first university. We were so lucky because on the day we visited the temple, there were loads of students graduating, so lots of Vietnamese students were in their robes and their traditional dresses and suits. It made the visit to the Temple that much more special.

Moving on to Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, we were lucky here as well, because although we weren't allowed in the Mausoleum (two months of the year they restore it) the changing of the guards happened just as we showed up, which was great timing. This is suppose to be as iconic as the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.

Around the mausoleum we also saw the one pillar pagoda, the stilt house that Ho Chi Minh stayed in...possibly, and the presidents palace. All of these things were worth a quick look but there wasn't much more to do than take a few photos and move on.

Keeping up with tradition we did try to visit the military museum, but thanks to Dads curse it was of course closed... for those of you who don't know about Dads museum curse... Whenever Dad takes me and JT on holiday we always try to visit the museum... he never has much luck, in Italy we took a train for hours to get to Naples to see the museum... which was closed, in India we tried twice...the museum was closed... the list continues. We did however get to see the main museum in Hanoi which was quite interesting, although not many signs were translated into English and the ones which were, were very basic, along the lines of 'this is a drum' lol.

After covering Hanoi pretty extensively by foot we were getting pretty jealous of the motorbikes whizzing past. We are tempted to hire some and try travelling to the south on bikes... but unfortunately for me reality kicked in when we realised we couldnt get our backpacks on the bike too easily... not to mention the fact I havent ever driven one before... perhaps Vietnam wouldn't be the best introduction for me.... but there are hire shops everywhere so perhaps I will convince Dad yet lol.

Miss you all! xxx

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