Lake of the Restored Sword (Hoan Kiem Lake) Hanoi

Y partimos a Vietnam!...claro que la salida de China tuvo más de algún tropiezo....salimos de Guilin muy temprano, tipo 7am, hacia la estación de trenes. El hostel estaba cerrado y el nochero nos debió abrir la puerta...afortunadamente nuestros amigos taxistas no nos pusieron inconvenientes a la hora de hacerlos parar y llegamos al tren a la hora. …

I can't help but compare Hanoi with Ho Chi Minh City. When doing so Hanoi's superiority as a holiday destination becomes apparent. From the airport to the hotel to the street-scape and astonishing beauty I have fallen in love with Hanoi with certain re-visit in the coming few years.

There is so much character in this city. We had dinner at …

I booked our 3 day, 2 night Ha Long Bay tour at 10:00 on Christmas eve night after a wonderful dinner at one of Hanoi's many Gekko restaurants. APT Tours, Hanoi picked us up from the Art Hotel on time at 8:00am to commence the three andf a half hour bus ride to Halong City. Chaos ensued once we arrived in Halong City with hundreds of tourists and …

The flight was 7 in the morning, we got to Ho Chin Minh city at 9 and waited for the 3hour layover. We finally got to Hanoi International Airport at 3 in the afternoon. At this point, the 4 growing boys' stomach were scorning at us. We quickly took our backpacks and headed for the door. Little did we know it, before the automated sliding glass …

After a nice sleep in, I realised that I had left all of my toiletries in Singapore – damn, not a good start to the day.

We spend quite a bit of time getting organised for the next few days when we hope to head out to Ha Long Bay then further south into central Vietnam. By the time we leave the hostel it is already early afternoon.< …

We arrived in Hanoi at 5am, on a crisp, chilly Saturday morning. We walked up to find our hotel and then went off to find some breakfast. We had some pretty average eggs and bread, and decided not to pay the extra dollar for butter!

We wandered up to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, and after managing to decipher the over-complicated security …

I've been here in Hanoi for what feels like ages, but it's only been a couple of days. IT IS BOILING HERE! It's the hottest country I've been to so far, between 35 and 40 every day.Thank god the dorm in the hostel has air con. The routine tends to be; get out of bed at 8ish, free breakfast of bread roll and coffee, go explore, come back at 12, nap …

After the sweltering heat of Cambodia, boy was it nice to get off the plane and find it was a cool 22c in Hanoi at 9.30 pm.

The flight out of Cambodia all went according to plan and we got a bit of dinner on the flight which was only 1 hr 40 mins. On arrival in Hanoi we got through immigration no problem - were glad we had got the Visas …

We seem to go about our commuting in a hard and tiring fashion! What looks to be only a 3hr flight direct, this 'good air-fare deal' turned out to be 20 hours of hot, sticky, uncomfortable exhaustion! As if the transition back to Kalibo airport seemed to be the hardest part, we had a 3 hour stop-off in Manilla, a flight to Ho Chi Minh City arriving …

After clinging on tightly in the taxi from the airport to the hostel we finally arrived safely in Hanoi. We have never heard so many horns beeping in one place at a time. Drivers do not look but rely on their horn to get them through a junction which means crossing the road can be a dangerous aaffair! The first day was speant seeking out food and …

... quite a unique city. It certainly charmed the pants off us. We started our exploration of the city at Hoan Kiem Lake ( Lake of the Restored Sword ) which is right next to the main backpacker ghetto. There's an island in the middle of the lake with a ...

The Old Quarter is on the northern end of Ho Hoan Kiem - the Lake of the Restored Sword.  This lake is the setting for an important Vietnamese legend:   "The Viet hero Le Loi was given a magic sword with which to fight the Chinese by the ...

... badminton or, mostly, formation dancing around the lake or down the pavements. The lake, known as Ho Hoan Kiem (lake of the restored sword) is the liquid heart of the old quarter. Legend has it that, in the mid 15th century, heaven gave Emperor Ly Thai ...

... it. We also went to the pagoda in the middle of the lake, which houses the gigantic embalmed body of a tortoise. The lake is called "Lake of the Restored Sword" because as the story goes, a long time ago the King was out in the lake on a boat with ...

... seeing a chemist the you'll pass five in a row. Hang Khay is right across the road from Hoan Kiem Lake - the Lake of the Restored Sword. According to local legend a Vietnamese emperor called Le Loi drove out the Chinese in the 15th century with the aid ...

... off for a walking tour of the French District and Old Ha Noi.  We also walked around Hoan Kim Laked (lake of the restored sword.) The most challenging part of the tour was crossing streets.   There are traffic lights and lanes but they ...

... streets of New York, that's what navigating intersections on foot is like. I made my way to Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the Restored Sword), the geographical and spiritual center of the Old Quarter.  In the middle of the lake is the beautiful Ngoc ...

... scoffed at Mom's tip!  This was the first clue that people here are colder. We drove around Ho Hoan Kiem (Lake of the Restored Sword) where legend has it that a golden tortoise took back a magical sword that the Viet emperor had used to drive ...

... . The tortoise took the sword and vanished into the Lake. Since that time the Lake has been called Hoan Kiem Lake, meaning Lake of the restored Sword. As we continued our walk, we encountered a rickshaw driver who offered to take us for a 1 hour tour of ...

... a bit strange and then you just get used to it. Walked up to Hoan Kiem Lake and visited the pagoda and the lake of the restored sword, the legend says that the emperor Le Thai had a successful uprising against the Chinese in the 15th century, after the ...