There ARE tortoises in Hoan Kiem Lake

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Apathy had set in & rather than do another combined road/bus/walking trip on our last day in Vietnam we decided to stay in Hanoi with no fixed plans & see what happened. In the morning we went to a delightful memorial house at 87 Pho Ma May, which has recently been renovated to display its ninteenth century glory. Displayed inside are examples of embroidery & bamboo articles typical of those produced on the street where the house is situated. The next idea was to walk to the Red River but this was thwarted by a big road that neither of us could face crossing & as it was nearly lunchtime we headed back to the Old Quarter for some grub & bia hoi. On route to the ice cream parlour we stopped at the Hoan Kiem Lake where we got to see a tortoise surfacing. These are no normal tortoises but the descendants of a golden tortoise who returned the magical sword of Emperor Le Loi to the lake & they are supposed to bring luck to anyone who sees the tortoises. It's quite remarkable that these huge tortoises survive amongst hustle & bustle of the busy streets of Hanoi & we were very surprised to see them. Tips for spotting the tortoises are:

• Watch the surface of the water for any bubbles
  
• The tortoises surface at about 90 second intervals
  
• We saw them at the north west corner of the lake between the shore & Ngoc Son island
  
• Keep looking, we didn't spot them till the third day of looking
  

Travel tips for Vietnam:

• When crossing the road if there does not seem to be a gap in the traffic (don't bother waiting for the lights to change - no one takes any notice of them) wait till there are only motorbikes driving down the road & make your way slowly out keeping an eye on the oncoming traffic (bearing in mind that traffic could come from any direction at any time), keep moving slowly in the same direction at the same pace & eventually you'll make it across the road.
  
• If you get fed up with various touts/hawkers & just about everyone else who's after your money asking you where you are from, pick a country that they are unlikely to get tourists from. If you say England the usual response will be "Lovely Jubbly" or "I know the Capital is London" followed by some way of extorting money out of you. When we decided to tell people we were from Latvia we just got puzzled looks & on the whole they left us alone, apart from one bloke who slapped me on the arm looking at me as if I had told him I came from Narnia.
  
• Don't believe anyone who says they collect coins. What they do is collect coins from a certain country until they have got an amount equivalent to about £2 & then try & swap it for dong with another tourist.
  

Drink of the Day: Halida Beer

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Comments

[Rachel]

Elusive animals
Your tortoise shot is better than our shots of the Irrawaddy dophins! Good spot! Keep the blogs coming - they are occupying our lunchtimes here at work. Take care, Rachel