Happy National Women’s Day from Hanoi Vietnam. Yes, this country celebrates women twice each year. Once on the international day of women and also on October 20th within the country. This special day to honour women is due to the long struggle they’ve had for equality (and they’re not there yet!) as well as in recognition of the fact that they’ve fought alongside men for their country in every war. Everywhere all around us today we saw women of all ages being given flowers, dressed in their finest, enjoying a treat with their family, or having their photo taken in their very best dress.
This morning we all had a great laugh at Lynda’s expense. She ordered the pancake off the menu for her breakfast and initially they forgot to make it so she waited a very long time. Then when they finally did get it made....it was soooo small it was not much bigger than what we called silver dollar pancakes as kids! It was hilarious! All the other menu items we’ve ordered have been more than enough but this pancake was so thin and tiny that it wasn’t much more than a single bite! OMG....and to think she’d waited so long for it....yep....we started out our day with much laughter. :-)
We decided on a 4 hour Hop On Hop Off bus tour today so we could hit some of the highlights of this city. One thing we learned on the bus is that there are 5 million motor bikes and scooters in Hanoi! That is a LOT of bikes! And Gail is pretty sure we’ve seen all of them coming straight for us as we navigate the streets here. LOL. It can be a little hairy getting across traffic. :-). Another thing we learned was about the mosaic street. It is 4 km long and is listed in the Guinness book of world records as the longest mosaic! It was gorgeous as well as impressive! Artists from all over the world participated in creating it.
Today is a Saturday so once again some of the streets in the old quarter are closed. As a result we had to walk a couple miles to get to a place where we could actually hop on our bus! It was a long hot walk!!! Once on the bus it was great. We were able to sit outside on top of the double decker bus and see all the sights from a great vantage point. There was a narrative that explained what we were seeing as well so it was well worth the $18 price tag.
Tonight we ventured back down to the lake area to see the water puppet show. It was fantastic! I have no idea how they were able to get those puppets to do some of the things that they did! Again, the $6 price of admission was a steal of a deal!
Once back in our rooms we’ve all focused on packing up again as bright and early tomorrow morning we’ll be heading off to our boat (Treasure Junk) in Halong Bay. The hotel here will keep our cases for us so each of us are just taking the bare necessities in a small pack. Not sure whether we’ll have wifi on the boat so if you don’t hear from us for a bit...don’t worry....we’ll be back when we’re ‘connected’ again.
Till then,
Darlorlyngai
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