Phudo Hotel Hanoi

... cow on a bright pink background, we very very nearly ended up with the cow painting.

Whilst hanging around out the front of the Hanoi backpackers hostel and telling some people about some really cool Americans we met on our Ha Long cruise Ray and Jess came cruising down the street!

They did a 2 night cruise instead of 1 night and ended up going back to ...

... discovered from other sources that there are prisoners who, following their release, told a completely different story. I spent close to two hours walking around, before heading back to the hostel.

Back in my dorm and I met a nice bloke called James, from Birmingham, and we decided to go for a drink. He was with a whole bunch of other people too so soon there were ten of us heading down the street in search of a restaurant. We finally settled on one that was decent, and I ...

... in the way they hunted animals for food. Outside in the grounds was a far more interesting exhibit. The musuem had built life sized replicas of the traditional houses that the different tribes live in around Vietnam. We spent some time clambering around these before jumping back in a taxi into town. Around the cathedral we found a great coffee shop where we sat and killed an hour before we returned to our hotel in time for the bus. We ae both quite relieved to be ...

... that I know this I won’t use it at all. Of course now I am doing a lot in private trying to see it but still nothing.

Sports: The most popular sports in Vietnam (in no particular order) btw this “expert“ info was given to me by several expats of varying nationalities but all of which have lived here for more than 8 years each and 3VN hashers all of which are also highly competitive even as hashers: Cricket ...

... handle, so I settled for an afternoon in front of the telly watching the Moto GP. It’s safe to say they returned with armfuls of goodies and stories of battles with shop keepers. They seemed content though.
So it was, we said goodbye to the first set of rellies and we had a little over a week until the next set turned up. We looked at various options for transport, but decided we wanted to do the Mekong Delta trip and then we would fly to Hanoi City in the north to ...

... br>seeing everyone walk round in Dior, Chanel and D&G etc...We went for dinner
at a roadside seafood stall packed full of locals tucking in to giant
snails. You pick your dish (which is usually still wriggling) and they cook
it for you there and then. Washed down with a couple of Hanoi lagers, it was
a rather nice evening. Overall a great city with a good vibe.

... lake in the middle of Hanoi), there were a variety of short 1-5 min sections with titles like, catching frogs, children playing, spring festival etc. There was also a live orchestra/band playing the traditional instruments, although they did look slightly bored with their job at times! After the show we had a bite with Kate and Dani, then headed home ready for the start of our Halong Bay tour the next day.

... the Perfume pagoda wasn't actually a pagoda, but a big stalagmite. This was just a prime example of turning something natural into a religious edifice, and having people throw money at it. Both of us were not too impressed. Lots of stalactites followed, apparently having different meanings such as wealth and fertility. At this point I think both of us were thinking that 50 USD would have been better spent elsewhere. Ah well. At least ...