Capital City

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Hanoi

Canada’s landmass is nearly 3 times that of Vietnam’s, however Vietnam has almost 3 times the population of Canada. I am currently in Hanoi, which is the capital of the single party (socialist) communist Vietnam and has carried a great history for 100s of years. I arrived here early this morning at 4 am and sat outside a guesthouse waiting to be let in by a prior telephone booking. After realizing no one was going to let me in, I wondered down a block to find an internet café and sat on the computer doing a blog for Sapa while waiting for everything to open. The majority of the population here seems to be in their late twenties, and in central Hanoi there is very decent backpackers accommodation. I checked into a hotel, had a baguette and 2 hard boiled eggs, had a sleep for 3 hours, and woke up to go explore. In Hanoi I visited the B-52 museum (which was pretty cool, since their was no security and you were able to climb through the pages of history and actually explore it. I was also the only one there at the time), the Vietnam military museum, the Hoa lo Prison (which held captive Patriotic Vietnamese under French colonial rule in the early 1900s and later POWs during the Vietnam war), the Van Mieu Pagoda (temple of Literature), the Tran Quoc Pagoda, and then I went over and realaxed by the Hoan Kiem Lake in hopes of spotting the legendary freshwater turtle.

I find Vietnam absolutely fascinating, and so far the great capital of Vietnam was not a disappointment.

Cor

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Photos

Vietnamese Passenger Chopper
if you look close enough you will see me, this thing was huge. I tried to get inside to have a look but it was locked. The funny thing is that the padlock on it was one you would expect to safeguard something like a diary

Chopper
The controls in this thing were pretty crazy. Oh by the way if anyone knows the name of a few of these please tell me.

Downed US B-52
What was left of the cockpit

US cluster bomb
just one of the bombs dropped during the vietnam war. The Viet mingh called these mother bombs becuse inside each shell was 150 baby bombs

Comments

[ben´hammin]

The intrepid solo travellers finds himself alone...
hey dude, nice pics, vietnam, laos and cambodia have always been places ive wanted to get to after coming so close 13 years ago. i especially love the pic of the boys playing the board game! also must comment on your solo camera skills. either you must be really fast and have a good tripod, or you are extremely trusting of random locals (who also seem to be excellent photographists) its a whole new game travelling solo off the gringo trail eh??? keep em coming... ben

[SIS]

Envy
Hey Core Bore I am sooooooooo jealous...you know how bad i want to go to vietnam...and you visited the war history museum...super cool...I definetley have to go asap...anyways you're lookin good...call me if you get a chance...luv yah sarah