Sorry about the delay with the latest edition of the blog I must admit it is all down to my laziness out here (this is David By the way), must be all the sunshine and heat I suppose going to my head : ). Anyway we left off last time in Laos in Vang Vieng and after tubing there we left and returned for a few days to chill in Luang Prabang before the flying to the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi.

We arrived in Hanoi to be then conveniently picked up by our hotel shuttle bus which we agree was worth after we had heard about the sheer amount of ripping off the taxi drivers get up to around these parts. The drive into the old quarter of the capital was our first raster of the the sheer amount of traffic we would be about to encounter from this point onwards. Just heading into the city centre we saw mopeds carrying both kittens and puppies in cages attached to the back of bikes!

After finally battling through a huge amount of rush hour traffic we arrived at our hotel to be greeted by possibly the most eager and genuinely friendly member of hotel staff I have ever come across, she already knew both our names and was very keen to hand us a map of the city and advised us on the sites to see. However after a full days traveling we were ready to only try and tackle the the local night market, which in the end was a busy as next on boxing day so after 5 minutes we upped and left, ready to hit the sack.

The next day we decided to see the sights of Hanoi, after booking a trip to take us to Halong Bay the next day. We ventured to see the Hoan Keim Lake and crossed the bridge to enter the Ngoc Son Temple. Inside the little temple which was like most temples here a bit tacky, they had a embalmed giant turtle!? We were unsure if it was actually real or not, but this turtle was meant to have give some king a sword from the lake to help him fight the Chinese we believe the story goes. Next stop after a look at the shoe market was the Ho Chi Minh Museum, we were unable to see him embalmed as he has gone to Russia to be repaired. The museum was interesting it was a timeline through his life, sightly weird though as Caroline said the loose links with art movements such as cubism, surrealism, abstract and futurism were rather odd. Plus they had a copy of a famous Picasso painting on it's side!? We they managed to fail for the biggest scam about, in taking two separate cyclo's who dropped us off in the middle of no where demanded twice the price they quoted us?! So annoying and my pedicab driver one armed might I say as well started poking me rather aggressively so we gave them the money and left safely. Luckily we only got ripped off but 6 pounds instead of 3 and some hour later after walking around and a taxi ride later we were back to where we knew. It's a good thing Caroline is good with navigating maps!

That evening things got better as after a lovely meal we headed out to see a water puppetry show which originally started from the paddy fields. We absolutely loved it, Caroline even wants to go see another one. We were really impressed with it, the puppets were very ornate and it was interesting to listen to some traditional music. Tomorrow we go to Halong Bay.