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Hanoi was first, middle and last in our trip in vietnam so I will put it at the end of the blogs 😊
We have spent a fair few days in Hanoi after arriving from India we had a well needed rest planned our trip in Vietnam and enjoyed the slow pace and cooler weather before heading to Sapa. We returned after Sapa and enjoyed a couple of days while we waited for our passports to be returned by the Chinese consulate with our chinese visa (which they were and we are now excited about the next leg)
We have enjoy it here in the old quarter where we are staying at hotel rendevzousa fabulous find with friendly hardworking staff and great rooms....the old quarte has cute little streets with general life happening right before you eyes its a little more slow paced than Inda and cool and calm we haven't done a lot other than look around and explore the streets to be honest but you can get sucked into this easily spent hours looking at shoe street and the same with glasses street, drinking hot drinks and looking out at the world going by, Some days we just
felt we were due for a down day so we would go out for a few hours and come back and watch a movie and relax eat some homemade fries in the food area and chat with the staff and like minded travellers....we met so many people here its awesome.
We have been to a couple of museums the one that has all the artifacts (Mike really enjoyed this) the Ho Chi Minh Mueseum which is basically about everything he did when he was alive through to all of the tributes from around the world for him when we he passed away a very highly respected man by many culures and countries I must say the museum is a little quirky and funny but it was all good. We also went to the museum of Literacy and it was more like a compound dedicated to confucius it was lovely and grand for something like this and there was some information written in english which was helpful and also interesting. He had many followers in Vietnam and they had a special testing system to get them to the highest point of there training including the final step to be asked a
question by the king of the country at the time and he would decide who would go through to the highest level and be recognised, interesting information but so hot and I am not so good at reading things in general I get bored easily have to be doing two or three things at a time but I did my best hehe. They have built a building and area in 2000's for scholar's of hanoi and I think it gets pretty well used too. There was a few weddings here having photos in the grounds and I can understand why it is a pretty place and would have a lot of significance to the culture. The only other touristy thing we did was go over the bridge to see the turtle they supposedly pulled out of the lake many moons ago this was ok I am sure to the Hanoi people would be more impactful! A few of these things were located in the new area of Hanoi which the roads are wider, busier and for some odd reason its hotter hehe We prefer the old area with the interesting little walk ways.
We have seen a few weddings actually
at the opera house one day there was four there all being photographed at once! We have and brought a few things - portable dvd player, reader and writer for our little netbook, movies for long journeys, Mike got me some shoes as my runners were needing the bin after Sapa. Overall it has been a great place to rest and work on onwards journeys! We have meet some great people here and added a few more friends to facebook. One couple we spent a bit of time with are from Brisbane they are a cute, vibrant couple that we hope to spend some more time hanging out with when we return to the Goldy...we had dinner a couple of times and drank coffee ate cake and chatted with them...they did have to leave and return to the real world as we continued on our journey.
There is many other things we could have gone and done but we are just not that enthusiastic about it and have enjoyed the sleepiness of the place and resting ourselves!
On our last days here we enjoyed some time with our friends from the hotel and were happy to be able to go
out and get them a cake to share and some gifts for a couple of them before we departed for China.
Our final dinner in Hanoi was at the same place we had our first real dinner meal with the brisbane couple we meet, this place is on Ma May- the New Day, food was even better as we went in and icked out what we wanted from the traditional dishes in the kitchen (missed this on the menu last time) and then they heat up what you have picked...we over ordered yet again and shared some with the people sitting next to us but throughly enjoyed our final meal!
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