February 17 Hanoi

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!  (Happy New Year)  Chinese Lunar New Year.

A first!  Rain!  It only rained lightly and didn't last very long so I don't think that it affected any activities people might have had planned to celebrate.

My comment on breakfast this morning is that the water was great and the coffee wasn't bad.  Enough said.  I had some mixed vegetables (barely warm), noodles (ditto) fried rice (ditto) and a cucumber and cheese sandwich.  Par for the course in this hotel.  Some people didn't even agree that the coffee was ok and i have yet to hear a good word spoken about this hotel.  Vu was suitably embarrassed and has changed plans for dinner today - back to the same restaurant where we had good meals yesterday.

Our first stop this morning was at the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum.  I wasn't seriously thinking about going in anyway but when I took one look at the line of tourists there was no remaining doubt.  The line stretched as far as I could see.  No cameras or anything were allowed inside so all that could be done was to file past his casket and that didn't appeal to me.  Those who did persevere said that he is very well preserved.  Glad to hear that.  LOL  What amazed me was the complete lack of local people in the area.  No bicycles, no motorcycles just tourist buses.

The second stop was back to the temple that was closed yesterday.  This is the original site of the oldest university in Vietnam.  Once again I wasn't interested in going in and didn't want to stand in line in any event so stayed outside and took photographs of people.  At this site there were multitudes of local people all decked out in their finest western garb - men and boys in suits and ties and women and girls in dresses and many with almost knee high boots with high heels.  Very different than we have become accustomed to seeing.  When we finished there we had to wait while a small group had a calligrapher painted posters for them in Vietnamese or Chinese characters.  Then of course it took further time for them to dry.

The final stop for the day was at a lake and park in old town Hanoi.  I would very much have liked to walk around there but a three to five kilometer walk back to the hotel in this heat and the condition of my back meant that was out of the question so I returned to the hotel to process my photos (and watch Law and order on television. LOL)  All of a sudden my small camera stopped displaying and wouldn't allow me to take a picture.  I don't know what the problem is/was but later on it seems to work perfectly.  Very strange.

I spent the afternoon doing not much of anything.  Had a short nap.  Went down for lunch with considerable trepidation but it turned out fine.  I had shrimp and baby corn soup and fried frog legs and both were good.  First good thing I've had to eat in this hotel.

The farewell dinner for five of our group was very very slow but tolerable.  Had a chicken club sandwich on a French baguette and then we moved down the street to the press club where I had two slices of a white chocolate mousse cake - decadent.

We, the remaining ten people, leave for Halong Bay at 9:00 in the morning (three and a half hours).  I know that I won't have internet access there because we will be on a boat the entire time, including sleeping.  In fact I might just leave my computer here in Hanoi because there may not be plug ins anyway.