We had breakfast up on the 12 floor – I had some Chicken Pho – pronounced “Fho”.

All was good, but after breakfast felt a bit of a funny belly coming on – so we had a quiet morning in the hotel – just in case! Toilets in Hanoi – well no.

I took some of my Tech Un ‘Chi-Kit’ pills which seem to help me a lot - http://www.sindebudi.com/english/pil-chikit.htm

We decided to venture out and see the shopping areas around the Old Quarter – It did not take long before people wanted to sell us things – like the lady selling bananas.

Pam and the bananas – you are suppose to buy after this – but we did not.

This is how one takes a mirror home from the shop

We basically just wandered around the streets as you really do not know where you are. Things didn’t change very much – still the same types of shops everywhere, lot of little food shops that you would not eat in. All quite dirty, mostly selling junky stuff that looks like it has been there for years. We found as we moved around different streets sold similar things, like metal food cabinets, or range hoods, or art, or shoes or music.

A local music shop somewhere along the path we took around the streets.

Pam will be happy when we move on from here as the traffic is too chaotic for here. For me as well but not so much.

So we managed to find the lake again and walked around the part we has not been to yet. We found a little restaurant at one end and went inside for a beer and pam got a pastry – quite nice not too sweet.

The beer is very good here – we have yet to try the 1 day old beer (they do not sell it in this type of place)– looks pretty light from what I have seen but the bottled beer is good. Wei would like it.

The restaurant was nicely decorated inside (although everyone was outside) and our view was nice. Beer was 35,000 VND and Pastry was 30,000 VND.

After dinner I went down to the lake – Pam was not keen to cross the road any more times than needed!

I was approached by a Shoe Shine Man – he wanted 20,000 VND to do my shows which is about $1.50 NZD

I was happy enough since they looked pretty bad from walking around all day.

He did a good job and I was happy – when I got back to the hotel I asked how much I should have paid and they said 15,000 to 20,000 so all was ok.

Probably not the worse I have seen but quite interesting anyway – outside of our hotel.

I hope our Power at home stays on !!!

Pam wanted to see Ho Chi Minh in his Mausoleum so we caught a taxi from the hotel to the gate where we found what looked like hundreds and hundreds of people queued up waiting to get in. Our taxi drove past the gate a bit and we paid him 50,000 VND about $4 NZD.

We were wondering what we should do and then a group of people got off a BUS and walked to a gate so we followed them. As we got there the gate was shutting but we got in – we did not know where we were going but we continued as if we were part of that group  (they were all Asian and we are white Kiwis!)

We found after a while that we were outside at the HO CHI Minh museum so we went inside 12,000 VND per person.

Looks like we skipped the queues at the front gate.

HO CHI MINH

A lot of the museum was about war and lots of photos and documents of his life over the years.

After the museum we decided to see where all the queued people were going – the length of the queue was about 500 meters long.

We followed the queue and then saw that they were heading towards the Mausoleum. We walked along and were told to not join the queue but continue down the street. We did this and then joined the queue at the other end of the street. A security guard then pulled us out and said we had to go through security scanner. So we had to join another queue – only a couple of minutes and they then said we had to go back to where we had originally came from to put our cameras. They give us a little ticket and we are told to pick it up at the exit.

No Cameras allowed in the Mausoleum or even near it.

So we join the queue again but only about 200 meters from the Mausoleum entrance. We are told to be quiet and hands had to be beside you not behind your back (Pam was told off)

It was a quite regimented process and we are marched in and around Ho Chi Minh in a glass box and then out again – about 30 seconds all up.

So in the end we did not pay to get it ( we think it was 60,000 VND each), skipped the majority of the queues and saw Ho Chi Minh in his glass box, and saw the museum – so all up pretty good.

We went to see Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum and after this we went for a walk – we noticed we were not in a normal tourist area, and in fact we were in a food market.

Puppies on a table – not nice – I tried to push Pam’s eyes away but she wanted to know what I was trying to hide her from!

In Vietnam you can not access Facebook – it is blocked by the government.  I suppose that is what you get in a socialist republic!

I can read Facebook via my Blackberry since it connects back to New Zealand or via connecting via VPN to Work, or via RDP when I connect Home to my home servers.