Hanoi City Tour and Puppet Show (Friday, November 18th, 2016)

Our morning started out with a Hanoi city tour, a great way to familiarize ourselves with the city.  We will have quite a bit of time on our own here, so it'll be great to know the city.  Hanoi has a lot of Vietnam war history, starting with the lake where John McCain was shot down and taken as a prisoner of war.  Today it is such a peaceful looking place, it's hard to image it during war time.

The John McCain memorial.

 Ho Chi Min's Mausoleum.

Then a trip to the Vietnam Ethnology museum, which tells about the 54 different groups of people that live in Vietnam.

The museum was interesting and told about the lives of all the different ethnic groups, and had artifacts of the way of life of many of the groups.

A bicyclist carrying fish traps.

A ritual tree.

But the part of the museum we found the most interesting was outside.  Here they had replicas of many of the houses used by the different ethnic groups.

A map of the outside portion of the museum.

A matriarchal  house.  Steve's favorite staircase by far!

 He had to "touch" it again on the way out.

The statues around this house depict everyday life of the people.

Mila needed an up-close shot of some of the statues.

Once we finished our tour of the grounds, we had a choice of two restaurants for lunch, and of course, we chose the authentic Vietnamese restaurant, mostly for the coffee!

But lunch was good too.

When we got our check, they had produced a separate receipt for each item we ordered.  Wow, that was a lot of receipts!

Then we continued on with our tour.  Trying to keep specific land marks in mind for tomorrow when we will be trying to navigate the city by ourselves.

The Hanoi Hilton.  We will be coming back here tomorrow.

The bus dropped us off at the Lotus Theatre where we would be enjoying a performance of water puppetry later in the day and then gave us time on our own we explore the area around the lake.

This sign was promoting trips to Halong Bay, where we just came from.  The prices were in U.S. dollars.  Wow, what a bargain!

This orchid arrangement at the flower shop was about $2.  I wanted one so bad.

Then back to the theater for our water puppet show.

The show was accompanied by a traditional orchestra.

At the end of the show, all of the puppeteers came out and took a bow.

Outside the theater after the show.

We caught the bus and headed back to our hotel to get checked in. Our room was just an average room, but Chris and Helen had a great balcony, so we had to do happy hour on their balcony.  They had great views of the city!

This was hilarious!  These people had a garden and a chicken coop on their rooftop.

Helen thought she was buying a coconut water, but it ended up being a creamy coconut dessert.

Then the six of us, Steve and I, Chris and Helen and Alex and Mila all met up to head out on the town and find some dinner.  They were just starting to set up for the night market.  It is amazing the transformation that will take place in a very short time.

In no time at all, it was a full fledged night market.

We found a little restaurant that advertised their rooftop seating,so we decide to give it a try.  The thing you have to remember about all of these little places is that they are just regular people trying to make a living.  Most of them live in their restaurants in off hours, so it is always an experience.

We walked through the restaurant and up the winding staircase to the rooftop.

The rooftop.

The view from the rooftop.

I headed down to the second floor to use the restroom.  It was in an outdoor hallway, and the was also the family restroom, toothbrushes and all.  It's not uncommon.  

Then back into the night market for some more fun!  The night markets are great!

When we got too tired to continue on, we finally called it a night and made our way back to the hotel. Hanoi is a very vibrant city, with an incredible night life. We are really enjoying our stay here but it isn't a place we could live.  It's a little too busy for our liking, but a great time for a short stay!