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| A Tai Chi group beside the lake |
In the morning, we had our first real taste of Vietnam, from the window of our hotel. The streets were busy and packed with tooting small cars and motor scooters On a morning walk we discovered groups of people doing Tai Chi - Ric joined in with a group who were very friendly.
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| Barefoot soccer on smooth pavers! |
The parks were filled with people exercising and playing sport. Badminton is very popular, and I was surprised to see young boys playing soccer on a tiled pavement in bare feet or lightweight shoes - to my mind, a recipe for disaster, but no-one fell or injured their feet to my relief.
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| Badminton is very popular |
This early morning experience was was followed by a huge breakfast with custom-cooked eggs. Chefs cooked eggs and other foods to the guest's requirements - a bit of a novelty for us.
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One Pillar Pagoda
photo by Ruud van Leeuwen |
After breakfast we went on a half-day tour with a guide Vinh & a driver. It was a pretty typical tour, we visited Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, house, bomb shelter and surroundings, including the One-Pillar Pagoda.
The One Pillar Pagoda (
Chùa Một Cột) is a historic Buddhist temple in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. It is regarded alongside the Perfume Temple, as one of Vietnam's two most iconic temples.
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Art and handicraft shop, also where
schoolgirls learn handicraft techniques. |
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| Model of the Temple of Literature |
We then visited the obligatory handicraft shop - an integral part of any tour to encourage you to spend locally.
This was followed by the University 5 stage temple (
Temple of Literature). It is one of several temples in Vietnam which is dedicated to Confucius, sages and scholars. It is quite extensive and very popular with the Vietnamese. While we were there, locals and school students vastly outnumbered the tourists.
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| The entrance |
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| Visiting school students |
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Example of the
rich decoration |
Finally Vinh & the driver took us past the West Lake and back to the Sunny hotel. While we were having lunch a massive thunder & lightning storm passed over, drenching the city & its people.
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The chocolate buffet, with every
imaginable thing done with chocolate |
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| Frances enjoying the high tea |
A couple of hours later it cleared, so we took a taxi to the Sofitel Metropole for high tea. This included a full tea buffet and chocolate buffet (US$8 ea).
It was excellent, many small portions of cakes & fruits, and chocolate done in all imaginable ways, including chocolate spring rolls.
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| Statue of Ly Thai To |
We walked the shopping district west of the lake for 3 hours, passing a number of historic buildings and monuments, including a grand one of Ly Thai To. Ly Thai To was the Dai Vhiet emperor, and it was he who moved the capital to Hanoi in 1010.
Vietnam's history is one of war, colonisation and rebellion. Occupied by China no fewer than four times, the Vietnamese managed to fight off the invaders just as often.
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Ornate gateway to a path near the West
Lake. Note the Chinese rather than
Vietnamese writing. |
At various points during these thousand years of imperial dynasties, Vietnam was ravaged and divided by civil wars and repeatedly attacked by the Songs, Mongols, Yuans, Chams, Mings, Dutch, Qings, French and the Americans.
Frances bought a few gifts and some linen, and we bought a large quantity of DVDs, mainly our favourite TV series. The trick, we found later, was not to buy the very latest movies or TV series as the quality was almost always crappy and some did not even work in the DVD player.
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| Sample of Vietnamese DVDs |
There were some fairly persistent salespeople, including one little old lady selling fruit who gave Frances her hat and baskets of fruit, then demanded money for a photo!
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| Frances 'going local' |
It was getting late, were getting tired, and although we thought we were heading back to the hotel in the north, we had become completely lost.
In desperation, we caught a taxi, agreeing on a price that we found was too high, as the trip was only a couple of blocks - we realised that we had almost navigated our way back to the hotel! We had a light meal in the hotel then crashed. For the first time we almost slept through the incessant beeping emanating from the street.
