Hanoi and the wonderful Ha Long Bay

It was raining so hard when we arrived in Hanoi and continued to do so for a couple of days.  In between showers though we managed to walk around the city, avoiding the flooded streets to visit the Duong Xuan market.  Luckily it was indoor and sold everything from bras to motorcycle helmets.  It was bustling though, as was everywhere in Hanoi.  The streets are full of motorbikes or mopeds which is how most people get around Vietnam.  We laughed many a time when witnessing what they were carrying on their bikes too.  Massive panes of glass, piles of old plastic presumably to recycle and also bags and bags of ice.  It was crazy!  As was trying to cross the road.  Nobody pays attention to traffic lights so you just had to basically just walk at a steady pace accross the road and all the mopeds, bikes and the few cars just dodge around you constantly beeping their horns.

Hanoi has a wonderful lake in its centre with a small island in the centre, connected to the land by a red wooden bridge.  On the island is a temple which was so tranquil to visit.  Hanoi is also home to Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body, although there are rumours around the backpackers scene that he came straight from Madame Tussauds!  It was unbelieveable how many people go to visit him every day.  There was a long queue of about 100 people when I arrived on the back of the motorbike I hired.  The Vietnamese are very serious about Ho Chi Minh, since he did so much good for them.  The queue moves quickly though and you just keep walking into the building and then past the encased embalmed body and out.  I even got told off by a guard for having my arms crossed and other people were told to stop talking.  An older Vietnamese lady behind me was wailing and bowing to the body as we walked past, which was rather surreal.

Some of Hanoi is quite westernised and there were some lovely restaurants dotted around and some good bars.  I had read about the Toilet Bar which I was desperate to find.  When we finally located it, it had toilets as chairs and a general theme of loos really, but was good fun.  We drank at Beer Hoi corner too, which a crossroads where on each corner you sit on children's coloured plastic chairs and drink the local beer for about 10p a glass.  When the police do their hourly checks through the streets though, the owner runs around shouting, 'Poliz, poliz,' and everyone has to pick up their beer and chair and get off the pavement into a shop.  This happened several time whilst we were there.  Crazy.

From Hanoi we took a 2 day boat trip to Ha Long Bay, which is where there are thousands of limestone casts sticking up out of the water.  The scenery was breathtaking.  There was about 30 of us on the boat, with our own cabins which were lovely.  The food was amazing and having the bar provided a good night too.  We went kayaking to a cave where on the other side is a big lagoon.  It was so pretty and walking through the cave and squeezing through small gaps is the only way to get there.  Really good fun.  After the kayaking everyone jumped the 30 feet off the side of the boat, crashing into the water.  Some people ended up doing this naked at 3 o'clock the following morning after too much beer too!  Obviously Stephen and I did not get involved in that though.