Feb 26 Hanoi

It's 27, hazy with some sun here today, with a breeze, pleasant for sightseeing. We first visit the Fine Art Museum in the beautiful old French Ministry of Information buildings. The collection is fairly unremarkable, except for the laquered paintings. But it was a nice size to cover in a couple of hours. We than crossed the road to the huge Temple of Literature complex, a Confuscian college dedicated to educating manadrins, still a place of worship. It was decorated for Tet or New Year, which we just missed (on purpose) but still had decorations and people visiting the capital for the celebration.
  Ted's comment on why this town is so religious? You pray before you attempt to cross the road! Sidewalks are strictly for parking motorcycles/scooters or the odd cafe or pavement shop. Pedestrians, cars and scooters have equal rightson the road, it's an art to get across.
  Crosswalks are plentiful but traffic never stops at one. Red lights are a suggestions, particularly for scooters.  However, there is plenty of eye candy to take in, short skirts, yards of leg revving the engines and cute helmets abound.
  Hanoi is a vibrant, young city, the high end stores close to our lake here seem to be busy, and people geerally appear to be flourishing.
  Our boutique hotel has 12 floors, the top a closed restaurant with an outdoor patio that we will use for breakfast tomorrow. Not quite up to the view from our hotel in Istanbul with Blue Mosque one way and Hagia Sofai the other! But between the lake an river with views out over the city. Our room on the 9th floor has a window which the staff opened after they cleaned today, and it was pleasant to have air and not too much noise from the traffic below. The room is remarkably quiet for being in the centre of the Old Quarter.
  I've figured how to download my photos from my camera to iphoto on my Pad, just not how to insert into the google blog yet!
 This afternoon the very helpful desk staff suggested I bring my airline schedule so they could issue my boarding passes for tomorrow's trip to Laos' capital Luang Prabang.
  When I also asked whether we should book for the water puppet theatre tonight, they immediately despatched a guy on a motorbike to pick up our tickets, charge $1 each for the service. Amazng! The tickets for this popular entertainment are $5 each. All US dollars of course.
  Talkng of money, everything in thousands or millions of units of money here. You divide by 50, cross off the last 3 zeros, multiply by 3 and you have the Canaidan dollar equivalent. Of couorse, tomorrow we'll go to Laos and have to start all over again with another currency! 

Welcome to Vietnam! Feb 25

Thur Feb 25  We spend 36 hours traveling from Calgary to Hanoi - city between rivers - capital of Vietnam, including the 13 hour stretch from San Francisco to Seoul. We are wined and dined on Asiana airlines, amid much groveling and bowing, with excellent personal friendly service (in business class) and exquisitive food presentation of a long liesurely lunch, food and booze (including Piper Heidseck champagne) on tap, and a nice 'snack'  3 hours before landing.
  The seat configuration is excellent, we are seated together, with fully reclining beds, comforters, l'Occitaine inflight goodies. However, we both resisted sleeping on this long flight. I watched 3 movies I hadn't seen, none outstanding but interesting  to have caught up after some won Oscars last Sunday.
  We rushed to our gate in the 1.5 hour Seoul layover, only to sit at the gate for almost an hour before cleared for takeoff. There were about 20 of us in the upper level of a 737 jet, service again amazing but food less than stellar. But by then we had sort of lost interet in the food and drink.
  I gave in and hunkered down in the comfortable stretch seats with a couple of hours sleep before arriving Hanoi around 11pm. Our bags were first through, our driver awaited, and a smooth half hour drive got us to our comfortable boutique hotel in the centre of the Old Town. Warm greetings from the friendly staff (our friends the Aarts already stayed here a few years back) and soon a shower and welcome bed, where I slept through to 8:30, Ted not so lucky.
  Ted was up, showered and off adventuring before breakfast. Our breakfast buffet on the 12th floor with a view of the ancient rooftops of this capital city was excellent, interesting mix of Asian and European foods, with a French twist to it all.
  We then spent an hour organizing our return to Hanoi in April and a trip to the cultural highland area just south of China in Sapa. Excellent tour desk personel had it all down flat in no time. We then wander off for a couple of hours in the bustling old town, street vendors, coolies with conical hats hauling baskets of produce, building materials, flowers, very colorful.
  Back to the hotel, I enjoy a glorious hour or so on the massage table at the spa here on the 2nd floor and my back feels much better for it. I am ready to fall asleep already but resist the temptation in case  jetlag takes over tonight! Ted again ventures out, walks around the lake here, checks out possible dinner spots and finds the cheapest beer! Both Hanoi Beer and Tiger are good. I think we'll give the wines a miss, French and expensive!
  At 6pm we return to a seafood restaurant he has found - at 6pm we are the only patrons. At 7pm we are still the only patrons! I wonder when these people eat? What's going on here?
  A nice dinner of seafood soup, a whole sapa fish grilled whole served with rice wraps, vermicelli, tons of fresh herbs, sliced veg and pineapple, quite exotic really. With 2 beers total $20 Cdn.
  We are running short of energy now. Back to the hotel to find our malaria pills and start taking them tonight as we'll be in Laos and the zone in 2 days.
  Exhausted, I hook up with my blog and record this before I fall asleep at 9:30pm - and Ted has already gone several times...
  We find two good news programs in English, CNN and another National news service here. Wifi is excellent and free and all the electric plugs I brought work with the iphone, ipad - yeah!
  I'll try to figure out how to insert photos later.....