Vietnam – Hanoi: Day 4

Realizing that we had a day longer than we thought in Hanoi, we decided to have a fairly lazy day starting with a bit of a lie in (aka 7ish).

After a breakfast downstairs we settled on a plan to head to the train station to get our tickets down to Hue after we return from HaLong Bay.

The train station was pretty easy to find and though slightly chaotic, it was quick to get our tickets. The more comfortable night train cabins were all booked up so we are in a hard sleeper car with six bunks. Should be interesting!
 
From the station we parted ways with Roman and headed up to the Ho Chi Minh masoleum complex. Neither of us needed to wait in the long line to get up close to the ashes of the great leader but we did head in to the museum. That was mind-boggling. Perhaps modern/contemporary artists would appreciate it more than I did with an abstract setup and non-linear layout. I appreciated that it was different but am not sure I learned anything about the man or country.

From there we visited the Presidential Palace grounds where HCM had a couple of different houses. The lines were nothing like those seen in Japan but the site was moderately interesting to me. At least I got some history in, right?

It began to rain when we finished so we caught a taxi back to the hotel where we pretty much relaxed for most of the afternoon. We did go out for a really good lunch at the Ladybird restaurant, another LP listed place.

In the evening, we met up with Roman again for dinner. We went nearby to Baan Thai, which was good but paled to our lunch. After dinner Craig and I went in search of somewhere to grab a drink. We found Hair of the Dog, which had an eclectic mix of 80’s music, entertaining drink explanations and very well-mixed drinks.

It was a lovely end to our day with one more to go in Hanoi. What adventures will we find tomorrow?

-T
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