Halong Bay...on a cold day

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Even though our first few hours here were quite Hanoi-ing (sorry), after some sleep we feel much better and head out for a walk around. As I mentioned in the last blog, Hanoi is cold. There's not one hint of blue sky or sun for the 2 days we're there and it feels a bit like Autumn.

There's not much in the way of sights here really, it's just a nice city. You can visit Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, or go to some of the museums...or just walk around. We decided to do the latter and take a big walk around Hoan Kiem Lake in the middle of the Old Quarter. It's a nice place and on the second day we also go to watch a Water Puppet show at the theatre.

Water puppetry is a big tradition in Vietnam and something they've been doing for a 1000 years. We get ourselves some tickets and end up on the back row (perfect for our long legs!). The show starts with a man wearing a giant puppet head, walking out and hitting a gong. Clio leans over to me and says in all seriousness, 'The puppets are bigger than I thought they'd be'
A classic Clio-ism!

The actual puppets are about a foot high and they're operated so they look like they're floating on water (sort of). They chatter and sing away in Vietnamese and do random things like dance with coconuts...its all a bit weird. I guess puppetry has come a long way since those day. God know what any of it means. The musicians who accompany them are very good though.

The next day, we get up early to go on a day trip to Halong Bay. This is another UNESCO Heritage site and is located about 3 hours from Hanoi. If possible, it's even colder here! They call the old wooden boats 'Junk's' and they take tourists around the bay for a proper look, so that's our home for 5 hours. 5 hours of dreaming about big jumpers, fleeces and gloves. However we brave the cold to stand on deck and admire the view. Halong bay is home to amazing emerald green water and huge, jagged limestone rocks that jut out of the water at strange angles. It also has beautiful caves and grottos that we explore. It's a nice day out and a good end to our time in Vietnam.

So the next stage of the journey was supposed to be Laos, but Laos has gone! Not off the map, it's just been sadly omitted from our schedule. We looked at every possible way of getting there with our limited time and money but it was just too expensive for just 4 days. So unfortunately we're going to have to miss the beauty of Luang Prabang and tubing in Vang Vieng. A wise traveller once said to me 'You're not missing it out...you're saving it for the next trip' which I think applies to this situation (actually it was some 18 year old lad I overheard in our dorm in Fiji who said that, and I thought it was the cheesiest things I'd ever heard at the time!)

So, our route has gone diagonal and I'm actually writing this in Bangkok (for the 3rd time!) before we fly to Chaing Mai tomorrow morning. Vietnam was an amazing country, but it's actually quite nice to be back in Thailand before we head to our last stop in Hong Kong. It's definitely nice to see the sun again and I'm sure we can squeeze some fun into our last 10 days!

Ali and Clio x

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