Its Christmas Eve Eve!!!

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Did we sleep well or what!!! We finally got to bed at gone midnight last night after faffing around sorting bits and bobs out and the alarm went off at 6.30am, it was not welcomed at all!! We were meeting our rep in the lobby at 8am so we had to make sure that we were awake and had some breakfast to give us an energy boost. Simon had Pho for his breakfast with chillis and lime……hhmmm he smelt nice all day ;-) Pho for those that do not know is like a spicy noodle soup that Vietnamese have for breakfast. I might be brave and try it tomorrow.

We met Dai downstairs who was going to show us around today and he was lovely, he obviously eats a lot of Pho as well! I was surrounded by the smell of garlic all day LOL

We started off driving to the Ho Chi Minh Quarter and his Mausoleum. It was a bit freaky I thought, walking past a dead body that has got more wax on it than Spencer’s hair!! It was extremely regimented, you were told to stand in single file, then double file, then single file again, and then we had to march down the road with soldiers to the Mausoleum. We were at the front and I was trying my hardest to get the soldier to talk to me and get some interaction, all I got was a mutter to keep moving!

After that we went on to the Presidential Palace, very yellow and French, that’s about it really. The houses that Ho Chi Minh lived in whilst he was there are really nice there are some photos to show you. The one pillar pagoda was very pretty and that’s where we got ripped off for the first time this holiday! An old lady who was approx 90 charged us 5000 dong when they should have been 2000- dong for some incense sticks, all we wanted to do was place them at the top of the Pagoda and say a little prayer for us for next year. It only works out that she had overcharged us by 10p but it’s not the point!!!

Outside our hotel is a huge lake called Hoan Kiem Lake and there is a very pretty Pagoda in the middle of it, there are apparently tortoises living in the lake and when an important event happens the tortoises appear to give there blessings. Vietnamese people are firm believers in myths & fables and it influences them throughout their lives.

As lunchtime was approaching we took a break and Dai recommended a fantastic restaurant for lunch, The Indochine, we had a feast of Vietnamese dishes and needed a nap to recover!! Instead we decided to walk it off and had a tour around the Hanoi Hilton, this is not a hotel, but, the prison that the Americans were kept in during their detention from the early sixties to 1973. Their stay was depicted as being very humane and not at all like a prison but history says otherwise. The “Hilton” was originally used by the French to imprison the Vietnamese and this is depicted in quite horrific detail, one wonders if the French were the Vietnamese’s teachers???????

After we arrived back at our hotel this afternoon we decided to venture out by ourselves, even crossing the road and surviving!!! We will post pictures and hopefully a video of this soon, seeing is believing!!!! We went to a shopping mall that was crammed to bursting point and managed to browse a few shops. I was looking for a pair of trousers and a jumper and was horrified to see that a jumper I liked was 220,000 dong, I worked it out though and realized it was only £7, not so bad after all. We then found the ice-cream parlour beside Hoan Keim Lake, had a rather nice ice-cream and people watched for a little while.

We will put some photos on another blog in a few mins, bye for now, have a fabulous Christmas and catch up again soon

Lots of Love

Nikola & Simon xxx

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