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Our train arrived at 5 am, which was a bit of a rude awakening after a late night of beer drinking and card playing. Too early to check into our hotel we walked around the central lake where everyone was doing tai chi and various exercises.
We then had breakfast at another street kids' café called KOTO, Know One, Teach One, a fabulous enterprise set up by an Australian guy a few years ago; they are now opening up branches all over Vietnam.
Hanoi is a great city, the old quarters still exist - there is a constant hustle and bustle and it seems much nicer than Saigon. Apart from the taxi drivers, who are all out to rip everyone off. We took two taxi rides and both times we were scammed - in the first one he tried to insist that the decimal point on the meter was in the wrong place and the fare should be 250,000 not the 25,000 we knew it should be, and in the second the meter went round at such a dizzying rate we would have ended up paying the equivalent fare from London to Paris as to go half-way across town. In both cases we got out of the taxi and proffered what we knew to be an approximately correct amount. The first driver took it begrudgingly, the second was far more aggressive and we had to threaten to call the police. He ended up spitting at us and I took his photo (he's a nasty piece of work whom I'm sure even his own mother has trouble loving). But it leaves you feeling very shaken and annoyed. I would advise anyone considering getting a taxi in Hanoi - walk.
We visited the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh, a very solemn affair for which we have to line up, in two's, no slouching, no hands in pockets, no whistling, no chewing gum. We immediately revert to naughty schoolchildren, poking our tongues out at each other and tugging hair. The stern faced guards lined up at the entrance admonish and rebuke us and make us feel about 6. It's a strangely reverential atmosphere for a man who murdered so many and induced suffering in so many more. Brian spends the entire visit with his lip curled, barely able to resist leaping on the tomb with some sort of Wolfie Smith raised fist gesture and shouting 'Up the Revolution', but I manage to talk him out of it and he satisfies himself by spending the rest of the morning mumbling and muttering about evil hearted tyrants and despots and that seems to suffice.
Later that evening we visited a Water Puppet Theatre and I am entranced, it's one of the loveliest things I've seen in Vietnam, possibly South East Asia. The puppet operators are actually in the water, but behind a screen, for the entire show. It's so clever. If you get the chance, go. But not by taxi.
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