Hanoi -30th July 2014

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I was awake earlier than I needed to be due to the noise from outside, it didn't stop from horns blasting to a lady shouting via a mega phone or something....... Finally the alarm went off & I managed to drag John & Ollie out of bed for breakfast on the 1st floor. After pouring 2 coffees(was to sweet for me) for us & juice for Ollie the man arrived with our breakfast beef pho for John & chicken pho for myself. This is a noodle & bean-sprout soup with loads of fresh herbs & chillies which you add to taste & then whichever meat you pick for it.

The taxi arrived on time to take us back to Ho Chi Minh airport but the domestic terminal this time. Omg walking into this airport is like stepping back in time to what Liverpool airport use to look like 20 odd years ago. We all grabbed a drink here & waited for our flight. We had to board a coach to take us to the plane which is pretty much like our easy jet low cost budget airline. While we were on the coach all the local people kept touching & trying to look at Ollies face to see his features as he has such blond hair because they rarely see blonde haired children over here. After a short 2hr flight we arrived in Hanoi. After collecting our cases again this taxi man was waiting for us with our names on his sign to take us to our hotel.

Well all I can say about this taxi ride is it was long & hot oh so very hot. The taxi driver had locked the windows & it didn't feel like the was any aircon on at all we where all dying from the heat & the drive to the hotel was just as crazy as it had been the night before, except this time there where more buses & coaches thrown into the mix to scare you even more.

We arrived at our hotel the Spring Flower Hotel in the old quarter & couldn't believe how lovely it looked, again the bell boy was there taking our cases in, we where given cool face cloths to wipe our faces on to cool down & given lovely cool soft drinks to cool us down. The guy on reception was very helpful advising us on where we were what was around us etc. he then took us up to our room & all we could say was WOW it was huge for a start & so lovely. We were overlooking the Main Street with our own private balcony, huge super king size bed, couple of armchairs & Ollies bed which he was very pleased with.

After a few minutes checking our junior suite out we decided to go for a walk to get some food as we hadn't eaten since breakfast & it was now after 3pm we were all starving. We took the advice of the guy from reception & followed the map to Hoan Kiem Lake(sword lake), which was just beautiful. Right in the middle of the lake was Turtle Tower which was just amazingly beautiful.

By this time we were all starving so we stopped at the City view restaurant, which as the name says had amazing views of Hanoi City. We ordered traditional Vietnamese food, which we love, even Ollie had a good go of everything also. We also crossed the Temple of Jade Mountain which is a little inlet island overlooking Turtle Tower, which was also beautiful shrine full off beautiful things.

As we wandered the streets we discovered that each street was dedicated to a product eg glasses street, baby street, vodka & wine street(this was our fav) & toy street to name but a few. We then headed back to our hotel for an early night as we had another early start in the morning.

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Photos

The Square
The view of the square from city view restaurant