Good morning Viet-NAM!

Now we can always say "..back when I was in NAM...". Ok seriously, the taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was crazy. The guy was definitely Vietnamese, but drove like a crazy driver from India. He would not only honk, but high beam everybody in his way! The roads were busy, and we witnessed 3 accidents along the way. The craziest was when he pulled into a toll booth, and just honked his horn some more, and without paying, someone lifted the barricade, and we were through! I want that kind of service in the US!

Luckily we got onto the tour to Ha Long Bay the next morning, which is a 3 hr drive from Hanoi, but it was completely worth it. The countryside is REALLY pretty--lots of lush, lush green fields and relaxed weather that just makes you feel so much at ease. At Ha Long Bay, I've never seen so many classic wooden boats in my life! They were all docked closely together, some with the bamboo sails that you see in the movies. Ha Long means "descended dragon", which is the symbolic name for the bay because it really does look like a dragon landed and had a bunch of kids. The steep limestone mountains around the still water is amazing.

That night we went to "Com Viet", a fancy restaurant that has a picture of Hillary Clinton visiting. We had a shrimp cooked in a coconut, and by the way, the coconuts in Vietnam weren't too appealing to us. We then rumaged through the night market and compulsively haggled over various lacquerware and checked out the very green Ho Kiem Lake. Apparently it's a romantic lake with a good number of people sitting around, but it was so dim and no stars were out I wasn't quite sure what to think. We missed the water puppet show which is supposed to be a must see eventhough it sounds like it's for kids but oh well. For breakfast and lunch the next day we had PHO! REAL, Genuine Pho! It was pretty good--fresh, light noodles in a tasy broth. We had to try it again elsewhere for lunch even. We spent the rest of that morning shopping...you won't believe that there are stores that will make your tombstone right then and there. It's like right next to the gold jewelrey store is a tombstone shop that will put just about anything you wanted. Had some fun negotiating too. After spending 20 minutes with the merchant and pulling out specific colors of scarves, Sharon ran out the front door because the merchant wouldn't go any lower! Then they went even lower than what we wanted, but we didn't have enough cash. Poor lady...but we hit the ATM and came back. Really pretty city and lots of shopping to do!

Click here to see all of our pictures from Hanoi.