Zin Chao From Ha Noi

Ahh all the login stuff is in Vietnamese so you're pretty lucky I found the "Post" button. haha

This is eventually going to turn into a travel blog, so what better way to start is by saying hello or Zin Chao from Ha Noi!

Mum and dad have graced me (and my brother) with a last trip overseas before I, being the big One Eight, means that I am overage in their books and can therefore fund all trips after this one.

So this one last trip has me typing this post from my little windowless hotel room (actually it's pretty nice) in the wonderful Ha Noi, Vietnam! I was going to go and take some long exposures of the street but my habit of leaving the toilet seat down and not putting the lid down with it has caused my brother some grief and he's in a strop... Is that weird? That is weird right?
Hopefully after this post the tension has cooled and I can convince him... Unless he's so transfixed with watching his pirated "Spectacular" the nickelodean rip off of "High School Musical" ... we'll see.

Anyway, less about crap and more about this amazing, busy city!

There are so many motorcycles as that is the main, and easiest form of transport. They beep their horns a lot here too, some of them sound nice dare I say, even friendly and some blast your ear drums like angry parrots. (I'm not sure where parrots came from but i'm sticking with it)

I've totally got walking across the road down pat too. I could pretty much cross with my eyes closed.

Okay I lie... but I'm pretty good.

We have a tour guide called Vu (which means power, or so he says) who is a little crazy and repeats himself a lot but very energetic about everything which is good. He took us to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum first up today. When we went in and walked around him I was half expecting him to wake up and stretch. Apparently when he died he signed a will that said that he was to be creamated because he wanted the money to go back to the people. However, the government kept it a secret and had him embalmed.
So now, for over 40 years Ho Chi Minh has been travelling to Russia every year for a million dollar beauty treatment to keep him looking less dead.
I guess being a physical preservation of his words and his actions when he was alive comes to play too..
I think that's pretty amazing. Although when you go in to see him you have to be deathly silent and wear appropriate clothing, I think it's because someone might let it slip that he's not creamated and he'd be pretty pissed.

Then we went to Maison Central affectionatly/sarcastically called "Ha Noi Hilton" By US troops serving time there, including John McCain. In fact, if we had stayed there an extra three hours we would of seen him... I think dad wanted to.

The Van and Vu then took us to the Temple of Literaure where I patted a many hundred year old stone turtle and then proceeded to pat my head because it'll make me smarter. (Let's hope so anyway)


Cutting this post appropriately "short" my stroppy brother is stroppy no more and we're off to take some photos. I shall put some up later.

I'd like to announce that my new favourite food is deep fried small crab from the rice fields. Yum yum. Although I was eating one tonight and its claw stabbed me in the gum.

Chao from Ha Noi : )