another day down (nearly) and another good'un!! this moring we had a bit of a lay in before getting up and going around Ha Noi. We started off by going to the Ngoc Con Temple, we've done a lot of temples now so it was pretty much what i was expecting, very nice to see though and had it's own personal qualities so not too samey! after this we decided we'd go a bit further away to the Ho Chi Minh Museum. we were just checking out how much for a pedalo when we were offered to go on the back of one the motorbikes here... we hopped on. i'm not sure if i've already mentioned the roads here, but they don't do lanes, everybody just drives around trying to dodge each other, crossing the road is much the same, but we're getting good at that now! ok so there's a tine vietnamese man in front, reynolds in the middle and me on the back - holding on to the man in front whilst reyn gets a load of pics of the 2 us - this was definitely not to be missed - we were laughing all the way!! when we got off the bike we were happy to pay the pound fare we'd agreed - much better than a theme park that's for sure!! The museum happened to be closed(thins here don't always open when they should, an exmple being that in the entire time we've been away we've walked past hundresds of banks, only 1 has had anybody in there!), so instead we walked around to the President Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and took a look there.. not much to report back on that to be honest, but you'll see the pics for yourself anyway, then to see the presidential palace, it looks pretty good from the outside so i'm guessing it's pretty plush on the inside!! We then went to see thetemple of literature, this was lovely, got a few pics of that too (when i get home i'll try to label up the pics - it's taking so long to upload them atm that we end up faffing about on here just to let them get on so labelling isn't an option! after the temple of literature we got a bike over to the old quarter where there's a market and we had a look around, the thing that hit me most was how many animals they have in cages for sale, normally it doesn't bother me too much, we're a bit desensitised to it but this really did just look very cruel. As we walked up we saw a big crowd of people and what looked like an ambulance, us being us went to have a gand at what was going on, hen we spotted a lot of wreaths and a platfom in what was actually a van not an ambulance, it turned out it was a funeral. I managed to sneak a pic of the van but stopped after that as i didn't want to upset anybody. we did watch them start the procession though, they had one man playing something that looked like a sitar and another on drums and another, but i can't remember what the third was playing, something with strings, i'mnot sure if i've seen one before tbh... and they went at the fron then 4 or 6 people holding gold embroidered banners followed, then the van with the coffin (the coffins here are really quite beautiful piees of work - we saw some in a shop and they're pretty) and then the family and friends follow the van through the town - we didn't follo for obvious reasons. after this we made our way over to see the water puppet show but the first showing they could offer us was at 6.30pm, 11.30am your time, but we've got a pick up booked for 7.30pm to take us into the mountain range for a couple of days where we'll be trekking for 2 days and spending the night inbetween with a local family that live there (in a group - don't worry) so we came back here to upload the rest of the pics and get showered - wearing flip flos and going on bikes... dirty work! just a note, we saw some women yesterday that are apparently the people that come from Sapa (where we're going tonight) and they loved us, they were grabbing mine and reyn's arms and pinching them (personally i think they were discussing how we'd be good if they put us in a pot and boiled us...) but they seemd to like us and found it hilarious when i put my camera into my hand (it was hanging from my neck) so tomorrow night could be interesting to say the least haha! i think if they were taller they'd have pinched our cheeks a bit like the maltese, but the maltese have better teeth (as in they have teeth) and sunglasses. Anyway i'm going to wrap up here, will update you all again when i can. Oh btw mum and dad, if you want to see reynolds' pics then aidy's friends with her on fb so you can see them that way. Lots of love to you all Nads xxxxxxx