The best way, we reckon, to get from Hoi An is to take the train. Ok, first you have to get from Hoi An to Danang to get to the start of the line. Taxi is easy, but local bus is better! The Americans left many things behind after the war, but I never thought that I would see a local bus so similar to the American school buses. Bright yellow with a hooter to match!

One of the nicest aspects of Vietnam that we experienced, besides the warmth of the people and their megawatt smiles, was the ability to find good food on practically every road corner. The little resto we found opposite the train station was no exception and here we had lunch and whiled away the afternoon until our train left. The owner was a delightful old man that had not a word of English, but a huge smile and smile lines so creased his eyes almost disappeared. He just laughed and smiled as we try to communicate with each other while we ordered lunch. He was a grandfather figure we all wish we had somewhere!

As the afternoon rolled on, so did that afternoon's rainstorm. The heavens opened as we slowly started our way to our arrival in Hanoi the next morning. It is said that the section of track from Danang to Hué is some of the prettiest in the whole world. I imagine that is probably right because the brief breaks in rain and gloom of an impending sunset did show much! Never mind….another time then.

After the calm of Laos, Hué and Hoi An, Hanoi's Old Quarter was a shock to the system. If there was ever a culture shock here is was! Cars are definitely in the minority and the population tends to get around on those little 125hp motorbikes. I would not be exaggerating if I said that there were probably millions of these bikes in Hanoi and everybody was driving them!

Whereas in other cities with staggering amounts of traffic, Hanoi's moves quickly and rarely is there gridlock. Getting from one side of the street to the other takes a little getting used to, but all you really do is look for a small break and step out. Like water that flows around a rock, so too does the traffic around you as you move from one side to the other. If you don't step out, you will never make it to the other side! A little like life really.

Old Quarter Hanoi was fantastic to lose ourselves in. We just wandered up and down the streets and enjoyed the chaos of it all. Each street is dedicated to a skill or craft and so most of the very old streets, at least, are named after the craft or goods you found there. We stayed in bowl street!

There was no atmosphere of us and them and we felt every much a part of the cityscape. Food was taken on the pavement from roadside stalls; beer was drunk with locals on small plastic table and chairs. The chairs and tables you find in children's play areas. Anywhere else you would feel ridiculous sitting on them, but here they are as much part of the scenery as the maze of cables the stretch from one post to the next above you. Everything just seems to fit. No problem!

It is not common to be sitting on a chair having something to eat while streams of traffic flash by not more than two feet away from you! After a while you don't even hear the horns honking and the engines buzzing! Our last night in Hanoi was spent drinking far too much beer at one roadside bar and putting the world to rights and then rejecting one hoity-toity resto for some seats and food at a busy corner (at about a third of the price for even better tasting food) just up the road. Here we watched the mid-autumn festival crowds and traffic stream by! And then a late night ice-coffee at a little family run bar just around the corner from ours. I think that Dad was in the back behind the curtain watching TV while Mom and daughter served us the coffee. I was intrigued by the bottle of alcohol that was home to a preserved, fully hooded King Cobra.

Who says I don't know how to entertain a girl and show her a good time?

Puppets and Uncle Ho

It is said that water puppetry is an art form that evolved from the rice fields in the rural areas. People need a means to entertain themselves and the water-filled paddy was ideal. It is said also that it is a highly evolved art form derived and refined in the courts of emperors. Whatever the origins, it is certainly impressive to watch and hear. From what we had read, the puppeteers train for three years to become as highly skilled as they are.

On a raised platform to the left of the stage are the musicians, some of who sing while they play. Others respond to the puppets as the puppets perform and "speak".One of the instruments is a single string zither, called a dang bau, which is completely bewitching, beguiling and mesmerizing. This is an instrument that girls' fathers feared would steal them away. It was said that any unmarried girl who heard it would fall in love with the bard and never come home!

The majority of the stage is dedicated to a shallow pool with an Oriental styled pagoda as a backdrop and where the puppeteers do their stuff. Puppets emerge from behind overlapping bamboo screens and the characters, arms, legs and bodies are manipulated by levers and string that extend along the bamboo poles that extend horizontally from behind the pagoda under the water and point toward the audience.

The stage is the pool where the puppets act out stories from folklore while the musicians play in accompaniment. What made this so impressive was that the dragons breathed their fire of crackers and smoke. Fish and turtles and snakes and unicorns and phoenix's all behave naturally and not like puppets at all. Boys and their buffaloes with the dogs that follow them were very real. As was the boat race with three boats and the crews and captains racing across the pool as the music became ever more energetic and the tempo cresendo'ed as the winner crossed some line! But it was the troupe of 12 dancers that were very impressive. You had given up seeing them as puppets and more as entertainers. The dancers skimmed across the pool in synchronized elegance and grace!

But the culture that runs most strongly through Vietnam, particularly in the North, is that of Ho Chi Minh. Uncle Ho, as he is affectionately known in Vietnam, is a revered figure; a father of the nation. Although the modern West might only know him from the trail that bears his name or some other connection to the American War, his dedication to overthrowing the yoke of imperialism and colonialism were instilled in him at an early age. He was one of the forerunners of the International Communist Party and a figurehead in a variety of others. He was well known to the Establishment in a variety of European intelligence services and spent some time in various prisons for his political beliefs. He was part of the inspiration to rid the country of the Japanese (with the help of the Americans who later abandoned him when the objective was achieved), the French and finally the Americans. He is seen as the inspiration for the eventual defeat of the Americans in Vietnam at the hands of the Vietnamese Communist Party (with the help of the Russians. The Chinese are loathed in Vietnam, or least viewed with abject suspicion).

To honour such a hero, a huge complex has been built. Part of it is his mausoleum where his embalmed body is supposed to be kept. When we were here it was closed. But when his body is on display, the Vietnamese continue to file past and pay their respects to this reverend figure.

The museum is surprising modern and well designed and take you through the various stages of his life. The authorities have made the displays, not interactive, but certainly enticing and intriguing. It starts with the great changes that occurred at the beginning of the 20th century and continue to his death.

You walk out with a sense of this man's dedication and vision and charisma and leadership. You can read about his belief in revolutionary morality and ethics. But it was with a little bit of skepticism that we read (all paraphrasing) that the (Communist) Party will lead the way and the people must put aside their own individual ideals and be educated by this organ of State because it ultimately knew what was best for you. You don't really count, only the Party does (and by implication its members are better than non-members and its officers are charged with controlling your life). Especially if you had some questions for the leadership and the philosophy of the Party. Uncle Ho was agreat man certainly, but you wonder how much propaganda is being perpetuated in order to ensure that the Party is the one and only?

We left with a very real sense that it all sounded quite good, but in reality, it couldn't have been. Here capitalism had taken root yet the country has a communist government. Go figure!