Hanoi is a very different to HCMC, thank God!! We were expecting the same sort of busy city where everyone is constantly rushing around and what not... we were pleasantly surprised, it seems a bit more relaxed and people seem a bit friendlier!

We decided to make a trip to the Hoa Lo Prison where they had captured some of the Americans in the war and held them here... the Americans were actually treated so well in the war that the prisoners started to sarcastically call it the 'Hanoi Hilton'. However if you translate 'Hoa Lo' into English it means 'fiery furnace' or even 'Hell's hole'. The prison was built by the French when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina. There were some pictures that showed many on the Americans smiling, laughing, making Christmas dinner and decorating there room for the festive time of the year where as the Vietnamese prisoners were treated horribly! Once again we learnt more about the American and French war and how the Vietnamese battle for independence with the French overshadows the American war.

After this we finally found a taxi driver that spoke enough English to understand we wanted to go to the 'B52 Lake'… which is a lake (obviously) where when an American B52 plane was shot down and had landed in the lake. No one had bothered to move the remains, so you can actually see part of the plane still there.

Then we headed to the 'Hanoi War Museum' which was pretty cool. There were a lot of planes, trucks and old guns on display. This museum wasn't as graphic like the Ho Chi Minh City one which, to be honest was a really nice change. Normally I'm not big or war movies and I don't know much about most wars so it can get a bit heavy going when you just want a nice day out.

Tomorrow we have booked a 3day/2night trip to Halong Bay…

:)