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Last Sunday evening Ash, Ha and I boarded the overnight train from Da Nang to Ha Noi. Ha had to travel to the capital to sort out a few things for her visa so we decided to accompany her and see a bit more of the country (at a much cheaper price than flying!). Ash and Ha, sitting on the right, had the best views of the sea and the bays but I saw water buffalo in rice paddies as flat as pancake, rolling outward to the mountains on the left. I was sat next to a lady and her young son who appeared to be sharing a seat. During the night I awoke find her head on my shoulder and his feet across my lap, trapped but content I was soon asleep again and we finished our journey at about 6am the next day.
We were taken for fools as soon as we arrived and were ripped off by a taxi driver who dropped us at our hotel for an extortionate rate. A little tired and hungry, we soon dumped our baggage and found breakfast at a small café across the street. After napping and relaxing and a quick second breakfast, we took a stroll to find a bookshop in the hope of buying a map. With this accomplished we set off around Hoan Kiem Lake (after which our hotel was named) and found it to be bustling with tourists and locals.
After lunch and debating our plans for the next few days, I eventually settled on going on a city tour the next day and a tour to Ninh Binh the day after, while Ash and Ha would do a one day tour to Ha Long Bay while I would be in Ninh Binh. All booked and feeling satisfied with the bargain promotions we had nabbed, we relaxed a bit more in the hotel. At half past four we made our way back to the lake to see the Thăng Long Water Puppet Theatre. Here we learnt about Vietnamese history and culture with stories retold by puppets in a small pool, accompanied by live, traditional music. I thoroughly enjoyed it and was amazed at the way they could bring the figures to life.
We hoped to find food quickly but unfortunately, with little knowledge of the area, we did not know where we could find decent, cheap food. After wandering around, getting pretty hot and bothered and having a strange encounter with a woman determined that if Ash posed with her pineapple baskets and hat for my camera, we would buy some pineapple off of her, we finally found somewhere. We were soon pretty annoyed though as they either had run out of the food and drink we ordered or told us it would take them ages to make so were forced into buying slightly more expensive dishes. We ate and made our way back to our hotel for a good night's sleep.
Bright and early the next morning I ate my free hotel breakfast, phở - what else when you are in Hanoi? - and was promptly picked up by my tour guide, Jerry. We walked a short distance to another hotel where two Filipino ladies emerged from the lobby to join us on the tour. Realising it would just be us three, Jerry called us a cab and we made our way to our first destination, West Lake. Here we visited the Trấn Quốc Pagoda, 11 stories tall and surrounded by the tombs of many monks. There was a temple we could go into and a tree we could walk round for luck, but I decided to leave that up to the Buddhists to do.
From here we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where we queued for a good 200m to be herded into the building where we saw the preserved body of Vietnam's first president, Ho Chi Minh in a glass case and surrounded by guards. We then carried on out to wander round the presidential grounds before visiting One Pillar pagoda. Here we took a break to sit down, cool off and eat some pineapple while getting to know each other a little better. Our last stop before lunch was the first university of Vietnam, Quốc Tử Giám, formed in 1076 and also containing the Temple of Literature.
We eventually made it back to Hoan Kiem Lake for lunch where, would you believe it, we ate in the very same restaurant Ash, Ha and I had the night before for our very disappointing dinner. Despite this, it was a far more enjoyable meal and both the tour guide and the two ladies were great company and had a good sense of humour. We finished the tour at the markets and while I walked back to my hotel, Jerry showed the ladies a good spa to go to.
As I finished early afternoon, I took the opportunity to research some good, cheap eats in the area. So with map in hand we entered food district in the Old Quarter and found a much larger array of street cafés. We found a fun place where you could choose various veggies and kebabs from a table and place them in a basket, you then hand this over to the chefs and they barbecue these for you before they place them on your own table's griddle to keep the food hot. You then just eat it straight off of the pan and dip into some sauce before munching away. The food was delicious and was relatively cheap for the amount we ate and apart from a close encounter with a cockroach we had a much better evening that the night before!
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