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!
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!
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