Hanoi

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I got to the hostel at 4.30am and went to bed for a few hours. When I got up I had a look at the map and decided to walk to Hoa Lu prison. This was a prison that the French built and housed captured Vietnamese rebels many of which were executed by the guillotine, during the Vietnam war captured pilots spent their time in the prison they nicknamed Hanoi Hilton. Inside two small rooms of the prison is a section dedicated to those men one exhibit is senator john McCain’s flight suit, he spent several years as a POW there and even tried to end his own life on more than one occasion. Each of the two rooms has a video display, the first room which has the flight suit and some of the clothing worn by prisoners has video telling the viewer of the war crimes committed by the Americans and how a call to arms by Uncle Ho unified the country. The second rooms has photos of the American POW's on special events like Christmas day and during exercise time where they played volleyball, the video in this room has to be seen to be believed apparently the Americans were glad they were captured by the Vietnamese (they could have done far worse it seems that) they were also lucky and thankful to be treated so well and when the prisoners were thankful to the Vietnamese for enlightening them. When I left the museum I went back to the hostel and as luck would have it I met a group of English girls in their late 20’s who invited me and a German staying in the same dorm to go for coffee. They were travelling and the following day one of them would celebrate her 30th. The girls later decided to do some shopping so I decided to try and find the downed B52 id heard about. In December of 1972? A B52 bomber was shot down and landed in one of the cities lakes where it stayed for many years. The German and I to two lakes miles apart before giving up and stopping for a snack on the street. I’ve no idea what it was called but it was crushed ice, a sweetened black bean, little pieces of jelly, yoghurt and some condensed milk. After this we went for a beer in a Bia Hoi at one of the cities many crossroads where we had a few pints (at 20p a pint it’s a crime to only have one) we watched the world go by while we drank. I had enough beer and wanted to organise my time in Vietnam ASAP so I walked up Bat Dan and the surrounding streets comparing travel agents, by the end Id compared 12 of them. I wanted to get an open bus ticket giving me flexibility to move on when I wanted but to fixed destinations. I also wanted to take a tour to HaLong Bay to save me the time in hanging around and to sort out a boat after organising a boat myself. The highest price was $88 so I put one against the other and the bidding war ensued.

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