Hanoi Day 4 - Cyclos and Water Puppets

Today we decided to see the city in style - by cyclo!

A few street scenes along the way...

First on the list was to see Ho Chi Minh's lovely soviet-style mausoleum and final resting place.  Sort of.  Normally his embalmed body is there and can be viewed, but from September from December he's out for "maintenance".  Seriously.

This was as close as we were allowed to get.

There was what appeared to be a rehearsal of a show going on nearby, everything was still decked out for that 1000 year celebration.

We took a walk around part of West Lake...

Where I sort of got us lost for about an hour, but Kim was very patient with me and didn't complain a bit.  Sweaty and starting to get blisters, we eventually made it to the One Pillar Pagoda.

There goes Kim, breaking the rules again...

 

At the Ho Chi Minh museum, more un-inspiring Soviet-era architecture... 

God blessing capitalism, the "I Love Hanoi" stuff was being sold about every 10 feet.  This girl was willing to pose for a picture until I declined to pay her, whereas she chased me all the way to the Temple of Literature ticket booth, demanding I at least buy a sticker.  I did not.

Some of the Temple of Literature:

There were lots of turtles that people kept patting on the head.  We had no idea why (luck maybe?), but when in Rome...

That evening we went and picked up my paintings that I had commissioned a couple of days earlier.  I stopped by a little ship with a couple of printed out pictures and viola!  Two days and $100 later, I had two gorgeous oil paintings.

The evening light show was a little lame...

But the water puppet show was fun!  Sort of like a regular puppet show but they were manipulated wires under the water instead of strings from above.

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The morning of our last day, I went outside to try to capture a few of the motorcycle pictures.  They fell into three categories.

Child Endangerment:

 

How Much Crap Can You Haul:

 

and It's A Problem Everywhere:

Goodbye Hanoi, I'll miss the Pho but not the exhaust!

Hanoi Day 3 - Halong Bay on a Junk

Halong Bay is located on the coast west of Hanoi, and is supposedly one of the not-to-be-missed sights in Vietnam.  Most people stay overnight on a boat out on the bay, but since Kim and I really didn't need the romantic sunset and sunrise, we decided on the half-day tour.  It's just over 100 miles from Hanoi, but the drive took us almost four hours - the traffic.  Our guide for the day was nice, but a bit of a... close talker.  She would stand really near you and stare, taking about 10 seconds too long to respond to a question.  This did not bode well for the day.

Our boat!  We had it all to ourselves...

First on the schedule was lunch, and it started out with what David likes to call "snot soup."  A thick, gelatinous seafood thing.  I'm a good eater and I don't even like it.  To be followed by fried squid cakes, grilled prawns and steamed crab.  Did I mention yet that Kim did not like seafood?  Not even a little bit.  They added to the fun by bringing the food to us on huge platters, standing in the doorway and peering around the corner and watching us (not) eat.  "Don't like?"  We sort of tried to fake it by taking small bites and moving things around on the plate, but I'm pretty sure we weren't fooling anyone.

We had a second local guide, who drew us into conversation by asking why we weren't eating more.  His English was great, much better that our first close-talker guide.  "Where did you learn to speak English?" we asked.  "School?"  "No," he scoffed, "HBO!  I love American movies!"  He was completely charming, feeding us movie lines, even Kim had to eat the crab he was personally shelling for us.  I mentally dubbed him 'Hollywood'.

The main course was - not seafood!  But it was really fatty lamb, which I hope nobody likes.  "But there's rice!  I can eat the rice!" said Kim excitedly.

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The meal finally over, the first rock formation we passed were the Kissing Chickens.

They let me jump off the boat and go for a swim!

My favorite part was getting off the boat and exploring Dau Go cave.  Spectacular.

This was the original entrance to the caves.  The story has something to do with people hunting monkeys, wondering where they disappeared to and then finding this awesome cave.

The Mothers Milking Breast.  Say that without giggling.

And the Old Wise Turtle.

The view from outside the cave.

We didn't quite stay long enough that day to see the sun set, but this was close enough...

Thanks Halong Bay, and goodbye to Hollywood!

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Next up?  Ho Chi Minh's resting place, and "How Much Crap Can You Fit On a Motorbike?"