Good Afternoon Vietnam...

Hey there readers! After four days in Hanoi we are now about to wheeze our way up to Sapa in the mountains...a bit of fresh air and beauty is all we ask for! It's been a bit of a weird one, as outlined by my beloved, but today, beyond the polluted air, there seems to be a glimpse of sunshine. Seeing Uncle Ho was definitely the highlight...you've never seen security like it. It would seem that I have a very dodgy air about me, for at every turn of the trip I have been searched, probed with a detector stick and asked many questions. I am generally misinterpreted in everyday life at home and find the most serious of situations hilarious...entering the mausoleum was no different. The guards made me very nervous and they were carrying these huge harpoon things (oh, bayonets, apparently)...as we walked in there I had a sudden urge to laugh (nerves, I think). Thank God I didn't. Still, I am approaching 30 with great velocity, so I might grow up yet. It was very interesting, seeing the man who liberated the Vietnamese from colonialism, but I couldn't help but feel for him...he only wanted a simple cremation and now he is gawped at daily by hundreds of people. Still, more than 30 years on, they seem to have done a good job.

We then cheered ourselves up by checking into a top-notch hotel.
The toilets here rival those in Japan! Not really, this is actually
Hao Lo prison, dubbed the "Hanoi Hilton"...quite gruesome viewing - especially the photos of poisoned, decapitated heads. So all in all, a great day. Made even greater by my 3 quid haircut. I've never had a do like it. First of all they wash your hair (I know, unusual)...except they do it for 45 minutes. It did include some sort of mini facial and an Indian head massage, not to mention an ear-clean - yeah, she really did shove her fingers in my ears!
Then a very masterful trim and blowdry/straighten. I was so
pleased with the result, I left a 6p tip - how embarrassing! Still
haven't got used to the currency...Andy is usually the one to get
his dong out, so I don't have much to do with the money side of
things. Well, Andy made me go back and leave a proper tip, only
for him to descibe my new hair as "thin, but nice."

So after all this excitement, I happened upon the most expensive restaurant in Hanoi (well, it was about time for a treat). "Bobby Chinn's," named after its owner and chef, felt extremely posh and the food was lovely. It took some persuading on my part to get Andy to spend the equivalent of four nights accommodation on a meal, but I got there in the end. Bobby himself put in an appearance and swaggered about the place with customers falling all over him. Had my first glass of wine in 5 weeks! It would seem he is the local equivalent of Jamie Oliver, but with more of a God-complex.

We've been staying in the Old Quarter, which certainly looks (and smells) old. Only a short walk away is Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the Restored Sword). Legend has it that a giant golden tortoise once lived in the lake. One day, he swam to the surface and grabbed the magical sword of Emperor Ly Thai To. This was the sword he had used to drive the Chinese out of Vietnam so quite important, and the tortoise returned the sword to its divine owners. Anyway, tortoises are perported to still live in the lake - one was spotted and photographed in 2002. Poor things, the water is rancid. There is a temple (not another one!) on the lake with an enbalmed 2.1m long tortoise (except it's a turtle)...the photo of which was too disturbing to post. Thap Rua (Tortoise Tower) is on the Southern end of the lake and is used as a symbol of Hanoi (see left).

We also popped into the Temple of Literature which was O.K. in a kind of decaying elegance sort of way. It was built in 1010 and is just about falling apart. We wonder just how much more acid rain the old buildings can take before they crumble to the ground. You are pretty much allowed to walk on or touch whatever you please, which can't help preserve things. The best bit about this place was the shop! On display were some great water puppets (even though they look quite sinister) - these have been used for generations in the theatre as a sort of Punch and Judy in a swimming pool. Even better, was the snake wine on offer. Bottle upon bottle of rancid creatures from snakes to beetles to scorpians - and people actually drink this stuff! You better all be grateful it's nobody's birthday coming up...except maybe Grandpa John's!?

The local delicacies have generally been quite fascinating. Some things are unidentifiable, others too scarily obvious. About 10km from here is a road entirely dedicated to dog meat restaurants. I would be interested to know what kind of dogs they use for this purpose - I mean, are the little ones better, enabling you to munch away on a paw in place of a chicken drumstick? (Incidently, chicken is off the menu here - as I discovered when I tried to order a sarnie for lunch, secondary to bird 'flu mania.) Or are the big ones better, enabling a kind of carving action to take place. Do they remove the heads (and tails) first? And what kind of accompanying items are best? Is there a have a "pick you own" system? I tell you, this is right up Em's street. There seems to be a fair bit of brain on display (of unknown origin), and horse meat too, as you wander though the street food stalls.

We braved a local place the other night and ate what resembled Vietnamese spring rolls. We only dared look it up afterwards, for fear we had actually been eating spider pancakes. They were very yummy though and for dinner & drinks for a quid, you can't really argue. Another good thing is pho - a kind of delicately flavoured broth with rice noodles - so we have a replacement for our beloved ramen! Mostly eaten for breakfast, they set you up for the day ahead. So I say cheers to Hanoi for its hair salons, pho and cheap Tiger beer. See you in Sapa. (Note the thin hair)