Day 2 Hanoi

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Day 2 - Hanoi
Up at 6am to join the locals in the park near the lake doing exercise. They were very welcoming and showed us the moves. We both joined in with dancing and light aerobics. Back for breakfast bread and cheese.

Booked our Halong Bay trip yesterday. We booked economy. The poor woman was distraught and said we looked like people who should book the luxury! I asked why she said because we were well dresses and had our nails polished! Note to self: don't go back packing with nail varnish on .... it's melting off!

Talked to some of the students in the hotel most on gap years, some thinking of teaching out here. A guy we were talking to yesterday told us he had been teaching out here for 4 years and was doing well. Think it's giving Lesley some ideas!

Off for morning coffee and wifi to load my blog then off to the Masion de central. A prison which later became a POW for US soldiers. Very moving and very sad. We decided that in the heat it was too far to walk so took a rickshaw . It was so exciting, up there with my skydiving! Just to be out in the middle of the traffic and seeing a different perspective. We decided to keep the driver as our chauffeur! .... He waited for us then took us to the Temple of Literature. It is a temple of Confucius and the first Vietnam university.

Walking back to town seemed like a good idea but when we asked people the way they seemed to struggle with Lesley's Vietnamese Yorkshire accent! We bought a sim and some data. Sounds easy but not when you don't speak each other's language. Lesley was on good form and used Google translate!

Headed back to the centre. Not eaten since 8am was not 2pm. We opted out of the Vietnamese food and went for pizza and spaghetti. Then the rain came. Luckily we were in a cafe. You knew it was coming. Everywhere went dark very quickly and the vendors took their goods in their shops. Once it had slowed down we ventured out shopping. What's funny is that each street sells the same thing. So we named them - men's trousers street - towels street etc. it's a good way of getting your bearings. Bought a few little momentos. It's difficult when you ask how much and they say 200,000 but really it's only £7.50.

Dropped our shopping back at the hotel. They've moved us to the room we should have been in. Large beds, clean and a balcony. Great, better late than never. Back to the centre to see the lanterns on the lake and coffee and cake. It's a hard life! Bests times today we're morning exercise with the locals and the rickshaw ride. Heading off back to hotel soon. Heading to Halong Bay tomorrow and Cat Ba Island.

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Comments

[David Greenway]

Looks great and so do you - very interesting xx