Hanoi (Monday & Tuesday)

Monday:

In the morning we went to the Ho Chi Minh (the old leader of Vietnam) area (museum, living place and a place where you can see his dead body). Unfortunately when we arrived there we found out that all those places are closed on Mondays... So that was bad luck...but we still walked around the area in the burning sun (39*C).

Afterwards we went back to the lake/old district to book tickets for the water puppet show. Only tickets still available were at 21.15, so got the tickets for this show. We went back to the hotel for a nap and then out again for dinner and the show. Didn't really know what to expect from it, but it was well worth the visit! Really amazing to see the performance. (I made some movie clips so can share with you all later). Basically they have some water basin in which they make the puppets perform some traditional vietnamese legends. But the puppet performance has a lot going in, the puppets really perform lion dances or play instuments or swing around with their hands or .. or .. you just got to see it ;). Then back to the hotel...

At 23.00 we booked a day tour at the hotel for going to the Perfume Pagoda. Not an easy job to arrange this as the normal staff were not sitting in the lobby, only the very friendly but not very intelligent security staff/new front desk person... But after some time of many misunderstandings he decided to call the regular front desk staff and then it was an easy arrangement from then on. The tour would depart around 7.45-8.15 the next morning.

Tuesday:

Had to wake up quite early to be downstairs on time for the tour. Before going on the tour had breakfast in the hotel (me: banana pancake casey: egg/ham sandwich + black extremely strong coffee). At around 8.30 the minibus arrived to pick us up, luckily most of the other participants were already on the bus so didn't have to circle around the city for too long before heading to the destination. It was a bus ride of about 2 hours, then everyone had to change onto 2 rowing boats. About 1 hour along the river with a beautiful view, some similaries with the landscape of Guillin.

There are 15(?) pagoda's on the perfume pagoda complex grounds but because the limited time we would only be able to visit 2. The first one would be a pagoda located in a cave. We had the choice to take a cable car or go for a 2KM hike up the mountain. Even thou it had rained and the tour guide had warned us it would be slippery we did decide to take the walk. Quite glad we did as it was intersting to see the local pilgrims heading to the pagoda and also enjoy the vietnamese style music played by the many stalls on the way. The pagoda was quite interesting, think I have only seen one other pagoda inside a cave before (in Xi'an).
Then once again the option to take cable car back or go for the 2KM walk again. Once again decided to walk. This time a bit regret doing so as it was indeed slippery.... While decending the stairs I did slip and fell down several steps. Luckily no serious damage! So went on going downwards at a bit reduced pace to ensure would not fall again. Arrived at the 'meeting point' safely and we went to have lunch with the tour group.

After lunch went to another pagoda which was very near to the restaurant. This time a regular style pagoda (actually not sure why they call it pagoda as I thought pagoda should be shaped in a stick shape? It is more like a regular temple complex). Anyway was still worth visiting, as it was a really nice, old style temple. Unfortunately not enough time to see the temple complex in more detail. The tour was quite rush, as the tour would have to be back at Hanoi centre at 7PM. So we head back to the boats, on the way saw more of the local foods. Saw the shells of the 'balut'/enbryo egg (will still need to find one to see the inside more clearly and maybe try to eat it??) further they had the snake wine with real snake inside, and many local mountain animals of which some I have no clue what they were. At least saw beavers and squarels.

The tour dropped us off at the hotel, and the very friendly staff allowed us to use a room which was not booked yet to let us take a shower and change clothes. Soon will be leaving to catch the train at 23.00 heading to Ho Chi Minh City (29 hours by train). Hopefully there will be internet possibilities again so I can further update everyone :D.