We love Vietnam!

It's so amazing to be in a new place and more so in a country where you can just walk down a street and see so many beautiful and wonderful things. Our hostel is right in the centre of the old town of Hanoi and right on the side of a legendary lake. We had a line in this morning to allow some recovery from the flight. When we did finally emerge from the room we had missed breakfast but the lovely staff here provided us with coffee and fresh pineapple free of charge. It felt so good to eat fruit! She also gave us a map and pointed out the places to see and where to eat. We headed off for our day and began exploring the area. After a failed attempt to find a cathedral we began walking around the lake. There was just such an amazing vibe to the lakeside. The road was closed to vehicles and children were running and playing on electronic cars and bikes and there were so many street sellers selling anything from balloons to fruit. We visited a temple that is on the lake which you enter by crossing a red arched bridge. It was the most beautiful temple we have seen so far. The statues and display inside was incredibly and it felt very moving while visiting there. Afterwards we went to buy our tickets for tonight's water puppet show and luckily they have 2 tickets for 5.20pm left otherwise the only time available was 9.15pm. For lunch we found a place that overlooked the lake on a balcony and had so amazingly fresh food, something we'd missed in Vietnam! From the balcony we saw three men we had seen before who each had a parrot on their shoulder. Two of them would let their parrots fly and then call and whistle to try and get them to come back. It wasn't very successful before but this time they were not having any of it. By the time we left and exited the building we looked up to see the parrot sat on the roof, 6 storeys up and the owner on the roof trying to coax him down. You'd think they'd learn that they don't want to come back to them! After some shopping and calling home we headed to our puppet show and it was a great thing to see. The puppeteers are in the warer behind a screen and I still have no idea how they made the puppets do all they did which just a pole attached to them. They had a band playing traditional instruments to accompany each little scene. Our evening consisted of visiting the old gate of Hanoi and a walk down the night market street before eating at a famous Vietnamese restuarant. I wasn't such a fan as Nick was so afterwards we visited burger king and I got an ice cream with hot caramel sauce. As I was paying I looked over and saw Nick who was sat down playing on the table with his hands with a little Vietnamese girl who had shuffled along to him from her table with her family. It was such a precious moment to see, the lack of fear from the child to speak to and interact with other cultures and it just reminded me that this is why we are doing this, this is why we are travelling for moments like this.Read more