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We decided to stay another day in Hanoi to take a good look around and stock up on anything we may need before travelling North to Halong Bay, also to compare how much the city had changed since Jo and I last visited Vietnam in 1994. .......... 18 years ago!! It was only in 1995 that the Americans opened up discussions with Vietnam for the first time since the war.
Well, last time in Hanoi, there were no tourists, no cars and very few scooters, only thousands of bicycles. That had all changed. A new road had been built from the Airport and through the City centre and now there were many cars, plenty of tourists, hundreds of motorbikes and scooters and very few biycicles.
Trying to cross the road was extremely difficult, but the same principles applied as last time. Start walking and keep walking very slowly, everyone will drive around you. .......... make any sudden movement and you would be run over!!
Before leaving to explore the City we had managed to book our trip to Halong Bay, with a couple of days on Cat Bha Island, through our vey friendly Young Hotel Manager, although not sure about his sincerity!
Hanoi was as busy as ever with street traders everywhere, beckoning you to take a look at what they had to offer .......... "Heh mister, you buy,... you buy" and asking the price of various things invariably gave way to the much overused phrase of ......"same,same ............... same, same". We were staying in the Old Quarter of town and the old French influences on Architecture, bread and good coffee, still remained, albeit less so than 18 years ago, the French having occupied Vietnam from 1858 until WW2, during which time the Japanese took occupation. The only real resistance came from the communist party led by Ho Chi Minh, the great man himself who still lies in his mausoleum on public view, .......... or is it now Madam Tussaud's handy work, as many suspect!!
After making our way to the Lake in the centre of Hanoi, Jo managed to que and get tickets to the very popular water puppet show, for 6.30pm. Somehow she managed to get front row seats, again!! in a sold out show! ........... How does she do it!! We had lunch, sauntered around, fixed everyone up at the 'Fanny's' Ice Cream Parlour and headed back for the Puppet show. It was a great fun show to watch and our compere introduced the Orchestra (Vietnamese musical accompaniment on traditional instruments) and happily informed us that the Puppet Show had now been performed World wide!
As most of the shops remained in full flow until 9/10pm,
Hanoi haircuts were now to be performed on the boys at the local hairdressers. Freddie was particularly excited as usually mum cuts it!! ............... much to Freddies relief, she hadn't brought the bowl with her!! ................... Jo thought Gok Wan was doing a bit of moonlighting when she saw who was cutting Freddies hair!
Hanoi remains a great city to explore and the children loved the excitement of the bartering and simply the fun and risk of trying to cross the road!! ................... Next stop Halong Bay, proposed as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World!!
This is me trying to trade Freddie for a cheap wallet and a Zippo lighter!! ............... I don't think she was very interested. ........... The man on the left kept following me around insisting that he could mend my Flip Flops, when I was quite happy with the way they were!!
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