Hanoi

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Wow - we're certainly in the capital city! There is so much traffic here, it was quite scary to get out of our taxi from the station to find a hotel. The drivers of all vehicles rarely look where they are going and beep continuously.
But we found a decent hotel, with a room on the 6th floor (many many steps).
We thought we'd give the Lonely Planet walking tour another go here. It was a good one! Hanoi's shops are mostly really narrow and long so that they could fit more onto a street. They are also in very distinct areas - hat shops, ironmongers, shoe shops, rope shops etc. It was very intersting to walk around the old quarter. Some streets have stopped selling what their name suggests. We only noticed one chicken on Ga Street. We did have to avoid women tring to put their very heavy fruit basket poles on our shoulders though! 'Photo?'

In the centre of Hanoi there is a large lake which may or may not have giant turtles living in it, depending on who you believe! We kept an eye out just in case. On a small island in the lake is the Ngoc Son Temple. We really liked it there, it was peaceful and full of interesting artefacts. Including a few cranes standing on tortoises and a preserved giant tortoise (we are very undecided as to whether it was genuine).
We booked our trip to Halong bay at the only western run tour operator. It's so difficult to go with a local company - there are too many dodgy ones who tell you one thing and deliver something far inferior. Plus they put fake signs up so even if you know the name of reputable company there's no real way of telling if you're in their office or not.

In the olden days, in the paddy fields a tradition of water puppetry developed. There is a theatre here that has continued that tradition and we saw a fantastic performance. The puppets are controlled by mechanisms under the water and puppeteers behind a bamboo screen. There were golden dragons with fireworks coming out of their mouths, fishermen, buffalo, harvest processions, lions and phoenix. It was a great performance. We didn't take any pictures as it was all a bit low down, but they sell miniature puppets everywhere so if we see a nice one we might get it.

We changed hotel this morning as the other one was only available for 2 nights. We 're here tonight before going on our Halong Bay trip (yay!) and then we fly back to Bangkok on the 6th November.