Day 67

Hanoi

I went for some breakfast at a popular Banh Mi place called "Banh Mi 25". I tried going yesterday but there was a big queue as it was lunch time but I was slightly earlier so managed to avoid the crowds. The Banh Mi was good of course but I don't think it was any better than any other Banh Mi place so I'm not sure why it's so popular. Yesterday at the train street a couple suggested I visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum where Ho Chi Minh is embalmed. Thinking it would be pretty cool to see such a prominent figure, I ordered a grab and headed over there. After finding the entrance I realised I had forgot that I needed to wear trousers so I had to go back to the hostel then back to the mausoleum. Somewhat unluckily it seemed that 5 busses full of tourists had arrived just before I got back and now instead of a zero length queue I had to wait about for a while. Atleast on the ride over I got go wear some funky looking goggles so not a total loss.

Eventually I passed through security and had a little walk around the grounds first. The first stop was the Ho Chi Minh Museum which was a cool looking building but seemed very closed. After that, I had a look round the 1 pillar pagoda which had a line of tourists waiting to check it out. I then went for the mausoleum which was grand and majestic but turns out you can only go inside before 11am which was a bit of a shame. Afterwards I was able to pay a little bit more to walk around the grounds of the Presidential Palace as well as the home of Ho Chi Minh. The buildings were painted a beautiful yellow and you also got to see the small collection of beautiful cars that he owned in his garage, sat right next to a quaint lake.

Afte that I got my 4th Grab of the day and headed back into town for the Note Cafe - a popular café where every surface is filled with post it notes where guests can write or draw whatever they want. I didn't expect it to be as colourful inside as it was - yet again beautiful in its own way. I ordered an egg coffee and a slice of cheesecake as I had gone this whole time without trying the famous Vietnamese egg coffee. As someone who thinks coffee is fine - this was also just fine. Also, the waiter who was Vietnamese had a very cockney accent and used so much British slang I couldn't tell if he was doing it to be funny but it turns out he has a lot of English friends and that's the accent that he picked up. After leaving a few notes of my own, I headed our and ran some errands around town as I needed to top up on some essentials.

Hanoi is known for its water puppet show and it was fairly inexpensive so I thought I'd book an 8pm showing. I showed up, and paid a little extra for an English audio guide, then sat down and got ready for the show. The show tells a story of Vietnamese history and culture through the use of live musicians and a central water pool where there were various puppets doing there thing. It's quite hard to describe it but it was cool to hear the history and story of Hanoi and the mythical creatures through such a unique medium. Plus the music was really cool as they were playing instruments I had never seen before.

Afterwards, I grabbed some dinner at a random restaurant where I was lucky enough to be sitting near a busker playing saxophone. He played some awesome renditions of popular songs and before I could go up to him and say how much I enjoyed it, he left as quickly as he came.Read more