Ha Long Bay 2

As promised, the next post and photos.......

We visited a complex of caves called "Surprise Caves", as apparently when the French discovered them they were surprised how big they were - silly French!

The one of the boat, was our boat named The Bhaya and very luxurious she was too.

We then saw a floating fishing village and Andrew had a go at making Vietnamese spring rolls. The final photo is of Ha Long Bay at dawn.

A photo we could not take was the view looking up from the sun deck at night, gazing at the stars - very romantic

Ha Long Bay

We are going to have to do a couple of posts, as there was so much beautiful scenery on our trip to Ha Long Bay to show you all.

We booked ourselves onto an overnight cruise of Ha Long Bay, which included a shuttle bus there and back, giving us our fist glimpse of the Vietnamese countryside. The photos above only capture a little of the spectacular scenery, but do give an idea of what has been dubbed the 8th wonder of the world. You can see Shivani lounging on deck, as well as our fabulous room.

Good Morning Vietnam Tai Chi Style

One of our days in Hanoi, we set the alarm for 5.30a.m. and went for a walk to the lake to see the Vietnamese partaking in all manner of early morning exercises including: Aerobics, Tai Chi, Tai Chi with fans, Tai Chi with swords, badmington and even their own version of a Muscle Beach.

Hom Kiem Lake looked very impressive with an early morning mist just rising.

Hanoi Water Puppets

The same day as our tour we went to see a Water Puppet show. This is a traditional Vietnamese show, which involves puppets on water acting out famous stories of legend. So we got to see the story of the turtle in the lake, as well as others. There is a live orchestra playing throughout and it really was quite amazing how the puppetiers did some of the movements. We think you have to see it to appreciate what we're talking about.

When we left the theatre the water theme continued outside, as due to a sudden heavy downpour the lake had flooded, so we bid a hasty retreat back to our hotel.

The last photo is one we took at Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum earlier that day, which just shows the gardeners tending the grounds, but we thought was very nice and shouldn't have been left out.

Hanoi p.m.

Post lunch the tour continued with a cyclo ride around Hanoi and the 2nd photo is of the poor, poor guy that had to cycle Andrew round for an hour, although he did look very dapper in Andrew's hat!

Next we were off to The Temple of Literature, which was built in 1100 a.d. as a university and now honours the scholars who taught the Kings and family at the time. We also enjoyed a live performance of traditional Vietnamese music whilst there.

We then went to West Lake and saw The Tran Quoc Pagoda, which is what the following photos are of. Can't acually remember if it is for worshipping any particular god, but it looked very nice all the same.

Then we went to Ngoc Son Temple on Hoan Kiem Lake, which honours a turtle.... yes a turtle! The legend has it that a very good Vietnamese general returned the sword he had won all these great battles with, to the goddess of the lake, who appeared as a turtle to reclaim it from his hand. Stanger still; they have a giant stuffed turtle on display in the temple, which was recovered from the lake in the 60's.
Right, that's it, lesson over.

Hanoi a.m.

We've had to split this entry into 2 parts, as we hired a guide, did a tour of Hanoi and there's lots of photos.

We went to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and were not allowed to take a camera inside. It was very surreal, as the queue to go in was massive with Vietnamese, but as westerners we were allowed to jump the queue. This was only because we had to pay to get in and the Vietnamese got in for free though. We got to see Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body on display, which was a bit weird. He is revered by the Vietnamese, as the man who brought them freedom from the French, Japanese and the Americans, plus he united the north and south of the country. We learnt all this from our guide; very informative.

The yellow building is Ho Chi Minh's Palace, although apparently he never lived there, just used it to host guests and work out of.

We saw the One Pillar Pagaoda and learnt that in Vietnam a Pagoda is a place of worship to a god and a Temple is a place of honouring someone that once lived. This pagoda was built to praise The Mother of Mercy.

We then headed to The Museum of Ethinology and learnt about the different ethnic groups that make up the population. It was a great way to see the traditional houses of the people as well, which were set-up around the museum for visitors to go inside and look at. We then went and had lunch in an authentic Vietnamese restaurant. No pizza or pasta for Shivani on this menu!

Vietnam

We arrived in Vietnam on 29th June 2008 and our driver was waiting for us at Hanoi Airport. He drove us directly to our beautiful hotal in The Old Quarter of Hanoi.

Vietnam was a bit of a culture shock and initially the city can seem a bit overwhelming ,with lots of Vietnamese coming up to you to sell you stuff, offer you a ride in a cyclo or simply to beg.

Hanoi is a mix between Parisian grace and Asian pace. The French used to occupy the City and so a great deal of the buildings are in a traditional French style, with boulevard streets. The Asian pace is clear from all the hustle and bustle of the traffic and sheer number of people. The Vietnamese and French seem to have the same approach to driving; completely ignoring traffic lights, driving the wrong way up a street and a flagrant disregard for pedestrians and zebra crossings!

Anyway, enough of our rant and back to what we did...

We had a walk round Hoan Kiem Lake, which is in the heart of Hanoi to get our bearings, had pizza(not very Vietnamese, but Shivani was not quite ready to take the plunge) and then went for a short nap at 4p.m. with the intention of going to the night market, but never woke up until 8a.m. the next day.

Well rested, we went for a walk around the city to absorb the sights and smells; the photos above reflect what we saw. The weather is very hot 30+C, which is why we may look a bit worn out in the photos.

The yellow building was the Natural History Museum.