Day by Day Travels

Monday and we managed to sleep in a bit- the jet lag wasn’t too bad, it had us up in the night a few times but we slept in until 7am. Up to the 11th floor and we had a wonderful “western” breakfast with some pho on the side. Then Vinny was at the hotel and we were off to our first stop of the day. The Ho Chi Min Mausoleum was our first stop. This huge complex was very impressive. The entire area has all the important buildings of Hanoi- including embassies and the Canadian Embassy was our first stop. We were not able to view Ho Chi Min’s embalmed body as the museum is closed on Monday’s – but we walked to the opening of the gardens and other buildings. The line up was pretty huge- but our friend Vinny told us to walk up to the guards and he would make a plan. He got us in to the complex with no issues. The complex has the presidential palace as you walk in- painted yellow as are all important buildings in Hanoi. Apparently Ho Chi Min did not want to live in the palace but stayed in a stilt house which we walked over to. There were what seemed like hundreds of Chinese tourists jostling their way through – but we followed Vinny and were able to see it all the sites with relative ease. After about and hour at this complex it was back on the bus and over to Confucius’ temple. So Confucius never actually visited Vietnam, but the people live by his laws. This temple is a tribute to Confucius his teachings and all the wise teachers in Vietnam – very interesting temple, with great teachers names inscribed into huge stone tablets that are in ancient Vietnamese. We had thought initially that the script was Chinese, but according to Vinny the ancient Vietnamese script has long been forgotten and the new French influenced Vietnamese is what is taught in schools. Next we were dropped off in the old quarter and each of us got our own cyclo driver for a ride around the quarter. These riders did an amazing job of maneuvering through the streets with the scooters, cars and general craziness. The scooters are everywhere. After the craziness we were ready for a break from it all- back to the hotel for a catnap and refresh. At 3 we headed back out into the craziness in the direction of the water puppet theatre for our 4pm show. Our front row seats were perfect. The show was an hour long and very unique- the puppeteers are behind the grass curtains and operate the puppets in the water from there. After this wonderful show we were back out on the streets with some shopping in mind. The old quarter is alive – there are people, scooter and things everywhere. People are cooking on the sidewalks, burning sacrifices of fake money to ancestors on street corners and selling all manner of foods and goods. There are bird cages with all kinds of birds, dogs of all shapes and sizes and anything else you can imagine. We wandered around the stores looking at all sorts of stuff in the “made in Vietnam” stores, the food stalls the coffee shops, the vendors walking by selling dinner in the form of baguettes and cheese. All the locals were out cooking dinner and squatting around hot pots bubbling with seafood, chicken, snake and goodness knows what else. After we had our shopping fill, we walked up the 6 story Avalon building for some night light views of the lake and the city. Pretty impressive from up top. Then it was the search for dinner- we had read about the Hanoi Social Club as being a good spot to eat. My google maps showed us the way- a few short blocks away from the old quarter and we were in the French quarter. Beautiful buildings with all sorts of French influence. We walked straight into the this gorgeous Notre Damesque church- mass was on so we didn’t walk in. Wandering these narrow streets in search of our destination, we realized that the gps has walked us straight into the heart of the Hanoi hospital- we sure got some odd looks as we walked past guys on stretchers, nurses and doctors on break and all kinds of medical buildings. Only to hit a dead end where we were supposed to be exiting- tuning around we tried to cut through some garage complex and were almost denied until the realized this was a group of hopelessly lost tourists. We exited and voila our destination was there- only to find that there were no table available- erg! Back to the Pasteur Street Brewing company we had seen a few blocks back- this time circumventing the hospital! We finally arrived and ordered some dinner from the not so appetizing looking menus- but we were hungry. The Beer was good- but my sausage platter turned out to be a plate of European wieners with some terrible fries and and Michelle and Danica’s grilled cheese with bacon jam, was more baby puke that’s jam! Oh well – adventures in Hanoi. After dinner it was a 20 minute walk back to the hotel- we were all exhausted and ready for bed. Tuesday we had a 6am wake up call!