We made it to the capital of Vietnam

Welcome to Hanoi and the craziness of Vietnam! 

It is mind boggling how much people in Vietnam honk their horns... Sometimes there isn't a need for it!!! It drives me crazy! A day in Halong bay was a great break from all the motorbikes and the fumes!! But too bad it didn't last long!!!

We made our way to the hotel, which is in one of the busiest streets ever!!! Tons of motorbikes, cars, and shops!!!! I wish I had videos that capture the craziness of the streets in Vietnam! It is almost impossible to cross the street, people have to take mini steps and abruptly stop in between motorbikes, we get honked from bikes that are 200m away, one way streets are often both ways because nobody cares! Really... They don't care!

Our first stop in Hanoi was at a very cheap street food restaurant that had pretty much chicken cooked 7 different ways! I had to get two orders of vegetable spring rolls that were really good but didn't quite feel like a proper meal and were covered in oil!

After lunch we went for an orientation walk around Hanoi and at 3pm we went for the very famous water puppet show!

So the water puppet show I believe is a traditional Vietnamese thing (haha) during the show they recreate Vietnamese tales and play folkloric music. Apparently it is a mystery how the puppets work and it's only passed on from generation to generation.

Well... The show was boring! I hate to admit it but I fell asleep for a little bit a couple of times! The whole show is in Vietnamese so we have no idea what's going on, the music was perfect for a mid afternoon nap so pretty much 3/4 of the theater was falling asleep! Most of the people in the row behind us were asleep and only woke up for the clapping! 

I guess the show is alright just to see it once in your life but it was very repetitive and hard to follow, no need for 45 mins, maybe 20 would have been a better choice!

For the rest of the afternoon we wondered around Hanoi and visited a turtle temple and then followed some loud music that lead us to a plaza where they were setting up big speakers for what seemed to be a very big New Years par-tay!!!!!!

A couple taking pictures at the temple

So far I have enjoyed the group very much even though there are a lot of young kids! So sad to think that half of them will be gone in two days :-( The one thing that it is hard with the big gap in ages in this tour is that the 18 year olds do not have the budget that older people like me have. At times it is very frustrating that we end up going to cheaper (and not better) places because they can save $3!!! Other than that, we all get along very well and really enjoy each other company!  (Well... Kind of! There is always one annoying person in the group that most people try to ignore!)

Here is the whole group having beers in one of the many street restaurants on the streets of Hanoi :-)

Halong Bay

After 14+ hours on a train we finally made it to Hanoi! Sadly, we had to take a four hour bus to Halong bay!!

I think Halong bay was one of the stops I was the most excited about and unfortunately we got here on a foggy day and what I had in my mind wasn't really what we got! I guess that's what you get when you have high expectations!

The view wasn't at all bad, we just couldn't see all that far and appreciate the many islands.

Our day started by taking a boat and having a seafood lunch on board. Food was good but the view (even though foggy) was the best!

The whole group except Becca and I went on a kayaking tour to some caves and paddled around some of the islands. Becca and I tried to get a boat to take us around but failed! No one would take us unless our local guide had arranged it before he went kayaking so we went up to the top of the boat and I decided to take a cat nap :-)

Becca relaxing :-)

When the whole group returned we kept sailing awayyyy... 

Halong bay has 1969 islands (same year as Ho Chi Minh died, tour guide repeated that sentence at least 7 times) and it means descending dragon ( he also said it 7 times!), it is a world heritage site and a natural wonder!!

We stopped at one big island which has a massive cave inside it! 

Jumpshot outside the caves:

Then, we saw a BEAUTIFUL sunset on our way back!

A fun night train

Tonight's train was extremely long but a lot of fun!!!

First of all... It was cleaner than the last so we were happy and second... We were prepared with all kinds of games, food, and some people even had an abundant supply of alcohol!!!

Lukas not approving of their singing:

The forbidden city and the four princesses

This morning Anne Marie, Sophia, Laurie, and I decided to visit the imperial city before the 1:30pm departure for our 14 hour night train!

... It all started with jump shots!!!

And a selfie...

The imperial city is a massive!!! Inside it there is the purple forbidden city where the Nguyen imperial family used to live! 

We watched a short video of the construction of the city and I was amazed by the beauty of it! It took almost 30 years to build it, from 1804 until 1833!!! During the video I couldn't stop thinking about how cool that place must have been back then and how amazing it would have been to be part of it (well, only if you were part of the family! Being a servant would suck big time!)

The citadel has been affected by two wars but they are trying to reconstruct a lot of it! The first part we visited was the Thai Hoa Palace, which had many oriental symbols and a huge gold throne in the middle. It had many carvings on the walls and apparently they are all poems about harmony!

After about 20 mins we went outside and while wondering around we saw some people wearing traditional dresses or what looked traditional to us! We quickly figured out that they were for rent... $3 per costume!!! I saw a pink one and I knew I had to wear it! After a little discussing we all decided to get dressed up and take pictures! Haha

I think that morning we were the best attraction! There were more people taking pictures of us than the palace! As good tourists we took a gazillion pictures making some poses that we gave no idea how to appropriately make! I believe we looked a bit silly but we didn't care!

Sophia, a girl from the group, is well known for her jump shots and since we were all looking so pretty we decided to give it a try... Or 128!!! Until we got a good one! It was fun, we felt like celebrities!!! Haha

We spent so much time taking pictures with our costumes that we barely got to see the forbidden city but we surely had one of the most fabulous mornings of the trip :-)

Hue

Bright and early we left to Hue!!! Half the bus was still drunk from last night partying so it was quite a silent ride!

At around noon we arrived in Hue, went for lunch and then 15 out of 17 of us went on a motorbike ride!

This probably was the most fun motorbike ride so far! Pretty much the whole group came and it was exciting to see a huge line of motorbikes and try to take pictures of everybody!

Our first stop was at a place where an older lady showed us how they get the rice from the husk, how to turn the rice into powder, how to cut the rice and she even showed us how she sleeps and rocks a baby at the same time! The old lady was very entertaining and for sure put on a show for all of us.

At the end she even made some natural "gum" for us! She wrapped some sort of root on a leaf and put lime stone paste on top of it (apparently they even use that paste to put on the walls!) anyway, I decided to give it a try and it tasted disgusting!!!! Not at all like gum!!!

Once again we got into our mopeds and on our way to our second stop we passed many many cemeteries, later our local guide explained that in central Vietnam there is no cremation therefore everybody has to be buried and that's why there are so many cemeteries all over the place! Most cemeteries that we passed looked really old and if it there had been abandoned but the sculptures and crypts in them looked very elaborate and pretty.

Our second stop was the THIEN MU PAGODA, which is the tallest pagoda in Vietnam (not to be confused with a PAKORA!!! which is an Indian food! Hahaha I had to explain the difference to one of the group members while on the tour)

Then we were taken to a very interesting site! It was a big brick fort where in the late 1800 and early 1900 elephants and tigers used to fight! Elephants back then were the main animals to take to war so they used the fort for the elephant to fight a tiger and get trained! The elephants won 99%of the time but I believe it's only because the tigers claws and teeth were removed prior to the fight... Super unfair!!!

Our next stop was at an incense and hat making place! The ladies showed us how they hand make incense and how they dry it. At the same place they make the typical Vietnamese straw hat and we were able to try them on and take a picture!

I kind of fell bad not buying anything but I already had a hat that cost me the third of what they were asking and the incense was too expensive (or maybe I was being cheap... Who knows)

The girls:

Our fifth stop was at a place where the US used to have bunkers during the Vietnam war! We stopped very briefly but we found time to take a picture of the whole group in our bikes :-)

Lastly, we stopped at somebody's tomb!... By then it had been a long day and I didn't care anymore! I just remember that the tomb actually doesn't have a body in it because the body was moved some place secret because they were afraid the body would be stolen! The place looked like they don't take much care care of it and there were zero tourists! The whole place was for ourselves but it was getting dark and we were getting tired so we quickly made our way back to the mopeds and back to the crazy traffic and finally to the hotel :)