At long last - RAIN!!! We needed it!

Trip Start Jun 11, 2008
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Trip End May 14, 2009


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Flag of Vietnam  ,
Monday, August 18, 2008

It was such a relief this morning to wake up to a thunderstorm. I know that sounds strange but it has been so hot lately that we needed cooling off a bit. It was the ideal day to get some sightseeing done without collapsing through dehydration every 10 yards!
So off we set. The first port of call was the "Hanoi Hilton". You will probably know that this is not a hotel but a war prison used by the French and then the Vietnamese. Our favourite part was the shackles and the strange horny feeling we got as we locked ourselves in them. The museum itself is full of Vietnamese propaganda as would be expected.
We then headed off to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum where the man himself is laid to rest. Not an overly exciting moment, but worth the visit. A visit to the "One Pillar Pagoda" followed, which was amazingly a Pagoda on one pillar! Go figure! We then went to Ho Chi Minh's "House on Stilts" and the Palace Forest are supported in Vietnam!!
Forest are supported in Vietnam!!
 . Again nothing profound here, more of a tick list.
Last stop was the Temple of Literature which was also once used as a University. This is where a Doctorate in Physiology was studied for. There are many stone turtles around the gardens with inscriptions on stone blocks alongside them. This was a lot of turtle's heads I can tell you! Allegedly, if you rub one on the turtles heads and then rub your own, you will gain greater intelligence. I was a little hesitant about rubbing a turtle's head, whereas Lorna was rubbing away as if her life depended on it!!
After a cleanse back at the hotel, a group of us headed to the "Cyclo Restaurant". You actually do sit in cyclo seats to eat your dinner. We splashed out for this meal, Lorna had steak & chips and I had roast duck - it was awesome, really quality food that just melted in the mouth. Lorna even got a bottle of decent wine for a change which made her realise that the Dalat wine she had been drinking for the last fortnight was Pants!!
After dinner we headed off to Finnegans Irish Bar for some beers and pool. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw a Nottingham Forest pendant behind the bar - and no other football clubs! The mighty reds are once again famous the World over!
Then to bed....
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