Today we ended up on a full day tour which we thought was for a group but we were the only ones so we got a private car and driver and our own guide for the day. The girl Duyen was really nice and spoke quite ok English so was very informative for us.

We started the day at West Lake visiting the Pagoda there. From there we headed to Ho Chi Minh mausoleum area though the mausoleum was closed as every Oct and Nov they send Ho' s body off to Russia for a holiday and for maintenance . We went through the museum though which gave us a sense of the American war against the Vietnamese that Ho played a critical part in.

From there we also visited One Pillar pagoda which is being reconstructed. We then visited another Temple of Literature where scholars go as part of a grad type ceremony. There was a ceremony being prepared and heaps of school kids dressed up were there. Reminds us of a year 12 grad back home.

From there we went to the Museum of Ethnology. This was quite interesting as they had actual buildings representing the different types of houses used by the various ethnic groups in Vietnam. Our guide was a Viet and she showed us what her house would look like. Very basic it was .

After the museum we headed to the restaurant for lunch called Pho 10. We had traditional pho for lunch which was very tasty noodle soup. We gave this little girl a koala toy and the mother came over and chatted with us for awhile and thanked us. She invited us to eat at her fathers restaurant in Halong bay . Very nice and friendly people

After lunch we headed to Silk Road and saw the whole lifecycle of the silkworms through to making the silk products on the looms. Very interesting . We bought a few bits of silk here for presents.

From Silk street we headed to Bat Trang pottery village. Also very interesting but we were getting pretty tired so we didn't buy anything here. Getting some of this delicate stuff home to Australia would be a nightmare.

The pottery village was our last stop on the trip before heading home . It was a great day and very enjoyable thanks to the great guide and the personalised service we got . Hoping we have the same experience everywhere else too.

Dinner and a stroll around the night markets and that was the end of us for the day.