Sunny Hanoi Hotel

... advertising signs, large bill boards showing cigarette brands, one with a picture of a cowboy carrying a saddle with a 'lighted cigarette' dangling from the corner of his mouth. There were also other indicators of western influence visible as we drove along. For example, I didn't know they ate 'pizza' in Hanoi but there was sign advertising an 'after hours pizza delivery service'.
Closer to our destination,we crossed a few very ...

... again, I thought maybe this was something new so I do it... a few seconds pass and it says "password incorrect the bank was going to retain my card". Whaaaat! No f***ing way! Now I have no money and no way to get money and its a Saturday with the whole weekend ahead. Fortunately my xeom driver is an understanding man and said I could pay him on Monday after I went to the bank to sort it all out. He takes me home.
I had planned to go ...

... in question, such as who made it, how powerful it was, what round it fired etc etc.We then walked 10 minutes south to the Hoa La Prision,The prison what built by French colonialists, originally planned to house 450 inmates, from 1896 – 1930 there were records indicating that there was closer to 200 prisoners detained at Hoa La. Most were political prisoners who for people who have not committed violent crimes had appalling
conditions to live in ...

... Vietnam.
Awesome – it did remind us of our days in the military...

Very relaxed day today – we took our time walking around the city and exploring.
After breakfast we went to Hoan Kiem Lake (Lake of the Restored
Sword) which is beautiful. We sat on a bench for a couple of hours
reading and watching people walk by. We noticed a lot of brides and
grooms getting their photo taken. The women were ...

... threw passports at the guard to get exit stamps. It took about 2 hours just at this section. Of course the foreigners passports were the last to get stamped and handed back, so we stood there like idiots the whole time hoping ours would be thrown back out next. Then it was on to the Vietnam section. Much better. We went from station to station paying mini-bribes at each one, and we were through.
Then, more and more ...

... and a blatent attempt to get yet more money out of us. This was confirmed when those that had gone on the boat came back a mere 5 minutes later looking very ****** off and saying that scummy was an understatement. We were then shown to our rooms, and what a joy that was. It was not air-con and a luxurious boat dream of a cabin, it was cramped, dirty and depressing!!! We swiftly stuck our heads out and grabbed the guide, using not so pretty language we pointed ...

... It was obviously a set up, as 200,000 dong is twice the amount we should pay for a journey anywhere in the city. So we paid her what we said we would for the original place we had wanted to go, as she had got other people involved and they were all getting quite aggressive towards us. This is the way they intimidate tourists who don't understand Vietnamese so we will pay the ridiculous extra price. We then got our and walked off - we weren't giving her the satisfaction. We ...

... only does this make it difficult for unsuspecting
visitors to differentiate between the original and the copy store for
instance, but the plethora of copycat-business inevitability leads to
very intricate scams...that we did not want to become witness to!

Mayhem: Our drive from the airport into the city takes place at
sunset, and over the next 35 km, our driver explains that there are 7
million people in Hanoi and 6 million motorbikes ...

... to see the monkeys in a natural environment. They were great! There was about 6 monkeys - big Mama and 4 babies plus a pregnant one. There was one particular monkey that had previously stolen a bag from the last group full of passports, flights, money etc and they had to bribe him with a whole bag of goddies to get theirs back. Today he was still in fine form attempting to get the hat off a local vietnamese boy, who we later found out his name was Ming ...

Salut, Première journée ensoleillée depuis que nous avons mis les pieds a Hanoi. Cool!. Ca fait du bien. Une journée sans histoire. Yohan s'est très bien comporté, une bonne sieste de 2hrs cet après-midi. Le soleil était brulant, par contre. De la 60 pour le poutch! On voulait se taper un Brunch de Paques ce midi mais pas de chance. Le Brunch auquel nous voulions ...