Hanoi, Day two

I'm actually typing this on day... um...it's Wednesday morning... day
four. We're in the back of a car on the way back from Halong Bay to
Hanoi. So if there are any spelling mistakes, it's because of that huge
truck coming towards us, headlights flashing, in our lane.

Anyway, back to our second day in Hanoi.

We really wanted to see the Hoan Kiem lake, the centre of the old part
of Hanoi, so after a really nice western style breakfast in the hotel,
we headed off in what we thought was the direction of the lake. We've
actually seen a lot more of Hanoi than we would have if I'd brought a
compass with us.

Once we found it, and along with it, the ANZ bank we were looking for
the other day, we wandered around to the northern end where there's a
small island with a temple (the Temple of the Jade mount, or Den Ngoc
Son) on it, reached by a very photogenic bridge called the Sunbeam
bridge. There's an entry fee to get across the bridge. It's 3000 dong,
which works out to about 25 cents Australian (probably 10p). It would
have been worth it for ten times that, partly because the touts trying
to sell you postcards and books couldn't get in. The souvenir shop on
the island was the first time I saw the little working model cyclos they
sell here. When I say working, I mean the pedals turn, it has a chain
that drives the back wheel, everything works. Just the thing for Stuart
Little.

After the lake, and having a better idea of which direction we were
heading, we found our next must-see location, the Hoa Lo prison, what we
in the west know as the Hanoi Hilton.

The prison was originally built by the French to house (and torture and
kill) political prisoners. The French named it Maison Centrale and
that's what's on the sign over the door even today. These days most of
the prison is gone, replaced by a high rise office building and hotel.
What remains has been restored and serves as a museum. It mainly shows
the part of its history when the French were using it, mentioning little
of its use during the sixties.

After the prison we ended up back at the hotel, via a market where we
saw dog meat for sale for the first time. We'll be heading back there
sometime, not for the dogmeat, but probably to buy some silk.

We had a late lunch in the hotel, some of the best fillet mignon I've
ever had and, surprisingly for hotel food, remarkably cheap. We had the
whole restaurant to ourselves as a wedding reception had just finished.

The rest of the day was spent uploading photos from my memory cards to
the laptop and packing our bags for the Halong Bay cruise.

Oh, and I discovered while doing a blog entry that day that Google blogs
can't be accessed from Vietnam and e-mails to Blogger bounce. All my
blog entries from here are going via my brother Laurie. Thanks for that
Laurie.