On Tuesday night, we attempted to find an Indian restaurant which we had found on the Internet and which looked good. After searching for about 15 minutes we had to give up and went to our second choice, a restaurant called Restaurant 96. We were glad we did. Beth had a Vietnamese dish which was a load of vegetables and some beef with some rice paper wraps which you use to make beef wraps. She was definitely impressed. I had sweet and sour pork chops which was actually pork ribs which was really good. We will be back before we leave Hanoi. We had earlier booked tickets for the water puppet theatre so we went there for the 9.15pm showing. It was only about £2 each and was definitely worth it for the 45 minute show. Although it was all in Vietnamese it was a good laugh and we both really enjoyed it.
On Wednesday, our first task was to go to the train station to book our tickets to Hue. It was a 20 minute walk to the station from the old quarter where we are staying. We made it to the station and got our ticket from the counter which was just for our place in the queue. This didn't stop a lot of locals just pushing in without a ticket which meant we were sat there for about 30 minutes just waiting to be seen. When we were eventually seen we booked our tickets to Hue for Sunday night when we will leave at 7.35pm and get to Hue at 9.10am on Monday morning. We wanted a soft sleeper bed but unfortunately there wasn't any of these left so we had to settle for a hard sleeper bed which we think will be a lot more uncomfortable. It was cheaper though so I was happy.
After booking the train, we went to the Temple of Literature which was nearby. It was a slightly strange place as we thought it would be a museum of sorts but there wasn't a lot of information and seemed to be a temple built on the site of an ancient university. It was okay for a walk around though. We then made our way back into town and sought out the booking office for our Halong bay cruise as we needed to pay for it. After that, we grabbed some lunch then headed back to the hotel. When we made it back to our hotel, we were informed by them that we wouldn't be able to stay there on Thursday or Saturday as we had asked on Tuesday. They then said we could stay in their sister hotel for 16 dollars a night so we had a look and were going to agree before they then said we would have to pay 20 dollars a night. We promptly declined so we now needed somewhere to stay either side of our Halong Bay cruise. After a quick look on the Internet, we found somewhere we liked and got booked up for Thursday and Saturday for £10 a night but unfortunately this wouldn't be the end of the story!
On Wednesday night, we managed to locate the Indians we had been looking for on Tuesday called Little India. The food here was absolutely great and we both loved the curry and the naans. We then had a wander around some of the shops in the old quarter before heading home.
So we moved hotels on Thursday morning to a hotel down the road called Joy Journey Hotel. It hasn't rained in Hanoi since we've been here but it would start lashing down just as we were about to leave. Even though it was only a 5 minute walk we were soaked by the time we checked into the hotel. As it was still raining, we went to a little cafe for lunch where I have to mention the pork spring rolls which were immense. We then had a walk to the Women's Museum which we thought was okay but we were both really hot as the air conditioning wasn't great. After getting back to our hotel, the receptionist then informed us that they didn't have any rooms available for Saturday night even though we had paid for the room on Wednesday and they had said they definitely had rooms available. This really annoyed us as this was the second time in a couple of days that this had happened. The receptionist then took Beth to the 'sister hotel' which was actually the same hotel she had been taking to yesterday!! A lot of inbreeding must be going on we think!! The room was even worse than the one we had been offered previously so we again promptly declined. So we've now had to book a different hotel for Saturday night and they have guaranteed that there will be a room available. If they don't then I'm not sure what will happen to Beth as she is one very angry person when she wants to be!
Anyway, we are off to Halong Bay tomorrow morning for a one night cruise which we are both really looking forward to. I just hope that they have enough rooms on the boat!!