April 9,10,11

Breakfast consisted of a buffet of miniature sweet green banana's, a Vietnamese version of chow mein, chopped fruit including dragon fruit, mango, and apples, beef pho, fried eggs, bacon and 2 different types of bread, one of which you can find being sold all over the street. It's a large, long loaf that reminds me of a miniature French bread but very light, so light it practically dissolves in your mouth once you take a bite. It's absolutely no problem to finish one off on your own. 

The merchandise seems to be sold in districts and as we walked we passed rows and rows of shoes, then silk, then tin and so on.  We made our way to Hoan Kiem Lake which was only a few blocks from our hotel and explored the area watching some Vietnamese kids demonstrate their own style of break dancing and took a look at Ngocson Temple in the middle of the lake. We must tell you about the streets in Hanoi! There are almost never lines in the road and when there are, they are merely suggestions that don't seem to be followed. They are mostly filled with motorbikes but have quite a few pedestrians, buses, cars and trucks and everyone has the right of way, all of the time. Everyone swerves around each other clamoring to be the first to get where they are going. It is as common as breathing to brush up against someone else as you fly down the road and there is never a moment of horn-free silence. We were advised that when we crossed we were to look straight ahead with confidence and never hesitate or else we would be standing at the side of the road all day waiting for a break. My life has already flashed before my eyes at least 13 times as the wind from a motorbike ruffles my hair while I am in the middle of the road. It truly is a miracle that we have not witnessed any deaths yet, but somehow it all makes sense to them. We caught a taxi to go across town for a couple bucks to the Mausoleum as our hotel hostess had circled it as a must-see on our map. I'm not sure what we were expecting to see but  it certainly wasn't the dead body of Ho Chi Minh enclosed in a glass box and surrounded by soldiers in a deathly silent room. We looked at each other and burst out laughing about this unexpected surprise then tried to shake off the creepiness we felt by touring the estate of this much 
-loved man, affectionately called "uncle Ho" by his people. He had beautiful palaces and lakes and it was surprising how many people were there to visit it. After our tour,  3 motorbike taxi owners approached us and asked if we would like a ride somewhere. We decided this was a great time to have the experience and hopped on when they promised the 3 of them would stick together.  We told them we wanted some good food so they took us to the food district and dropped us off at one of the finer sit-down, open-air restaurants. We had 3 entrees including beef au vin with bread, grilled pork with herbs and noodles and roasted pork with rice vermicelli along with guava juice and some sodas. We noticed that many people were drinking a multiple-colored drink with layers of a dark liquid, something that looked like tentacles, a white liquid and ice. We asked for one, officially called Che Su'o'ng Sa Hot Lu'u and turns out it was delicious! What we thought were tentacles were red, green and yellow chains of water chestnut-tapioca pearls, jelly, coconut milk and ice. The best part was , our whole meal ended up being about $12.50 USD. Our motorbike drivers had waited for us and drove us to the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology.  On the way there we had a bit of a scare. Amanda's driver decided to race ahead of the others and we got separated. It was quite a long ride and Amanda started freaking out and remembering all the horrible stories people had told her about Asia. Meanwhile Char and Aubrey  were panicking as well and it was a relief to get to the museum and see Amanda safe and sound. A bit shook up, we looked at items from Vietnam's many ethnic groups including the history of the charming conical hat. They had an outdoor cafe where we decided to relax with dessert and drinks which included a Vietnamese version of tiramisu and a delicious crepe filled with fruit and an orange sauce and the most amazing creme brûlée ever! Our taxi drivers were still outside so we had them drive us to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum where John McCain was held.  Once there we let the taxi drivers know we wouldn't be needing their services any longer. They told us our total was $80 for the day.  Since they had told us our first trip would only be $5 for the 3 of us there was no way we were paying that. Char gave them $40 and said that was all we could pay. They looked pretty mad so we quickly escaped into the museum.  They actually had the flight suit Mr. McCain was wearing when captured and a few other photos of him as well.  We looked at the stark walls, the crude stocks, and a piece of the sewer system through which over 100 men escaped and felt sad for all the human lives wasted there.  Once we got outside we saw a large group of vietnam vets who were coming to visit. It was neat to talk to them about their experiences, they said the government paid for them to come every year and visit as long as they qualified. To qualify, they had to have received the purple heart.  We flagged down a taxi-car instead of bikes to ensure we stayed together and went back to our hotel.  It was only 4:00 pm and we were exhausted so planned to take a short nap before seeing the famous water puppet theatre that night.  Next thing we knew, it was 9 pm and we had overslept.  So we went back to bed and slept peacefully until 2:30 am of which we will elaborate on next post!!!!


Sunday
Today we woke to the sounds of motorbikes racing underneath our window.  It was only 2:30 am so we laid there hoping they would go away but when 3 am rolled around and they were still there we got up to watch.  There was a group of 10-15 motorbikes racing around the block while doing wheelies, etc. After a while the number dropped to 3 or 4 and the rest of them stood on the sidelines to watch.  By the time we realized we wanted a video they had disappeared and the rest of the  city was waking up.  I don't think this city sleeps but there seem to be a few hours when everything is quieter. We were all wide awake and breakfast wasn't until 7 so we watched "The Bucket List," caught up on emails and showered in our shower-without-walls.  These showers are super inconvenient because the whole bathroom gets wet.  At 7 we were once again served the same delicious breakfast...we were starving since we had slept through dinner the night before!!  While we waited for our tour bus to pick us up, Char started chatting to one of the hotel hostess's about life in Vietnam.  She told us that most people make about $5 USD/day and that we had actually overpaid our taxi drivers by about $10.  That was a relief because we had been feeling a little guilty about only paying them half of what they asked for. She also told us a few other interesting facts.  Most people pay about $50/month for rent but many people live in small homes/apartments that have been in their family for generations.  Many people also work for the government and if so, you get 6 days off a month plus pay during maternity leave.  If you work for a private business like she does, you only get 2 days off a month and you don't get paid maternity leave.   She said that you can buy insurance but it doesn't do much good because the doctors all prefer people who are paying with cash and if you have insurance you will be the last in line for medical care, even if you arrive to the hospital before a cash-paying person.  Our tour bus picked us up around 8:30 am and we stuffed ourself into the crowded van for a 3 hour trip to Halong Bay. We were accompanied by 2 french people Who spoke very nice English and the rest were Vietnamese.  Halfway through we stopped at a rest stop with many other tourist buses for some bathrooms and snacks.  They were also selling many interesting Vietnamese items but everything was overpriced compared to the street vendors.  The scenery outside as we drove along was mostly made up of rice fields where workers were care taking in their conical hats, just like you see in pictures.  Occasionally in the middle of a field there would be a random cemetery...it looks like many people are either buried above ground or have very large alter-type memorial stones.  We also passed many factories, one of which was a HUGE, sprawling Canon factory along with some others that looked like they manufactured clothing and electronics.  Our tour guide, Michael (more on him later!) told us that a BMW 5 series would cost over twice as much here as  in the states and an iPad would be around $2000.00 whereas you could buy them from $400-800 in the U.S.  Once we boarded our cruise ship they directed us upstairs to the dining room where we were served orange juice and given our room keys.  We were split up into 2 rooms which we decided was fine cause it meant an extra bathroom!! Our rooms were nothing like the photos we had been shown....more false advertising...but they were clean.  Halong Bay is made up of over 2000 islands.  Michael told us the legend is that many years ago the Chinese were trying to take over Vietnam and so the dragon gods blew down jade into the water which turned into islands and caused the Chinese to be lost among the islands without food and water so they died and the Vietnamese won.  We first stopped at Hang Su'ng Sot which means "surprise cave." It was first discovered by a sailor and he called it that because of something he saw in the cave which would be shown to us later.  The cave was HUGE and we probably climbed over 1200 stairs to get in and go through.  Michael kept pointing out random rocks and claimed they were various shapes that somehow we just couldn't see. lol.  There was a large rock shaped like a turtle with a pile of money on it's head.  We were told if we put money down and rubbed it's head good luck would come to us.  Not sure who collects the money but....someone's making bank.  After the cave we were ferried over to a kayak rental and once again were split up.  Kayak for 3? Not possible.  We kayaked around the islands and explored a couple other caves where our not-so-excellent kayaking skills got us stuck.  After kayaking we went to another island with a man-made beach.  The sun was going down and it was too cold to swim so we climbed 408 stairs to the top of the island where they had a look-out gazebo thing.  The climb almost killed us but the view was amazing and we felt like we were on top of the world!!! We watched the sun start to go down and then began our decent back down the stairs, which went much faster than the climb up.... And then ferried back to our ship. We were given a few minutes to settle back in before Michael wanted us to all jump off the boat and into the water with him. We told him it was too cold but he still jumped a few times while we tried to convince him it would be better to jump in the daylight. After that it was time for our "cooking" class. We were allowed to roll one egg roll apiece which consisted of spooning the meat and veggie mixture onto a rice sheet. We are pro cooks now lol. After that we had a few more minutes and then another interesting meal that we tried to make the best of. When you are not huge fans of seafood, and those are the main dishes being served, you are very thankful for the rice.... And the cookies you buy off of the boat vendors. The boat venders are these little row boats piled high with every kind of junk food imaginable, soda, water,cigarettes, wine and much much more. They pull up to the sides of the bigger boats and barter to make sales. Our personal favorites were the chocolate moon pies and Pringles potato chips along with a fanta orange soda :) breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions. Hahaha! We wish we were joking. No mom, we will not be losing weight while we are here! After dinner which consisted of more seafood soup, seafood salad, mushed fish on a stick, mussels in the shells, and pigs feet we settled in for a lively karaoke show.  Anything that Michael is involved in is not the least bit dull.  Being Vietnam, the karaoke was broken of course so after waiting 30 min while they tinkled with the machine Amanda passed out and went to her room to sleep.  Michael soon fixed the machine and Aubrey stayed for his first song then snuck off before she could get roped into performing.  Char was up next with our French dinner partners Frederic and Aureli.  We sang "hello" by Lionel Ritchie and a classic beach boys song.  Unfortunately michael decided to join us and threw us off so bad with his booming voice that those songs have never been performed so off-key in their entire existence and probably never will be again.  What a treat for the boat to hear.  Amanda and Aubrey asked the next morning what all the screeching had been about.  So now you know a little more about the amazing Michael!!

The next morning our alarms went off at 5:45am in hopes of catching the sunrise. By 9am we realized...there was no sunrise. It was too cloudy and foggy. Should have slept in! Our breakfast consisted of white bread, butter, jelly, fried eggs and uncooked bacon. They fry the crap out of all of their other food, why couldn't they fry the one food we actually might have liked? After breakfast we said goodbye to our French friends and tour guide Michael, and headed to the deck for some sunbathing!!! We have great tan lines in all the wrong places! We are hoping to fix that in Thailand! The sun did come out and the scenery was breath taking. We saw several islands where one of the many James bond movies was filmed. We also saw a special island that is on their currency. Lunch consisted of...take a guess.... Fried squishy fish, octopus salad, a fried whole fish, fried clam, rice, and cabbage. Tgf pringles and moon pies! Our tour ended right after lunch, and we hopped back on the bus for our three hour ride back to Hanoi. Why is it that we always get stuck in the back of the bus? We give all credit of the errors on this post to the bouncing up and down while typing in the bus. A galloping horse might be a smoother ride!