Hanoi

Leaving Cat Ba island and Halong Bay behind we headed to Hanoi, the capital city and Matt and Adele’s final destination before leaving us to fend for ourselves again!! We had made it, south to north in 2 weeks and hadn’t lost them along the way – or driven them mad! All that was left to do was explore the old quarter of town, check out a water puppet show and say our goodbyes. The old quarter (main tourist area) bussles constantly and like most of Vietnam holds on to certain aspects of its former lives – the colonial buildings, Gothic churches and croissants served in little cafes showing that the French were here once; Hammer and sickle flags, communist party posters showing red book holding, forward pointing brothers in arms and statues of Ho Chi Minh showing that although ‘Socialist’ by name they still hold communism very close; then there’s the Hanoi Hilton as it was dubbed by American POW’s selling Coca Cola in the visitors shop showing, well showing that hey life moves on be it war or communism! The streets around the main centre make for great exploring and people watching. Each street seems to specialise in selling a certain thing and those things can be quite random – so you have one street where everyone sells bits of metal in all shapes and sizes, the next will sell locks and keys, turn left to mirror street or right down cellotape alley and so on…stationary, religious statues, silver, shoes, dvd’s its all here and all in one convenient location, ok so its not great for choice as everyone seems to sell the same selection of cellotape or Virgin Mary statue with fairy light beading, but at least you know where to go if you ever want one! It took us a while to find our favourite street but we hunted it down in the end, ‘street bar’ street – just pull up a plastic chair built for a 5 year old or plonk yourself down on the curb then sit back and enjoy being served up big bottles of beer for around 45p – no bar, no licensing rules (well slacker ones anyway), not even any peanuts for sale, just big bottles of beer from a man who runs into his house and brings them back out for you…for 45p, sorry did I mention that bit already?! One of the main things to do in town is check out the water puppet show, so on the guys’ final day we headed down to the theatre to catch an afternoon performance. The show tells little folk stories of Vietnamese life based around water, so fishing, water buffalo, boats etc the puppets are attached to bamboo poles operated by people wading waste deep in water behind a screen – all very clever and all a tad bizarre but hey it was kinda fun for an hour! From here it was one last goodbye drink and then hurry back to the guesthouse to say goodbye which all ended up a little rushed as Matt and Adele were herded onto mopeds before our very eyes and driven off to the airport – and they were gone, just the 2 of us again, what do we do, what do we talk about, can we cope with just each other again, aaarrrrggggghhhhh!