Pho for breakfast at the Hotel Metropole.
My room at the Hotel Metropole - very nice! (Until, that is an early monsoon caved the roof in in just my one room.)
The Museum of Ethnology - full of lots of homes taken from minority villages and reconstructed on the grounds.
The women working at the museum were making their lunches in the houses kitchens.
Hanoi from the window of a cab.
All the electricity, phone lines, etc are above the street because the city floods so much that putting them underground would be a huge undertaking.
Lunch at the buffet at Sen Nam Thanh
Blood cockles - very delicious
The "Hanoi Hilton".
The Temple of Literature where scholars went to learn to be Mandarins when the Chinese controlled Vietnam.
The names of the scholars who went on to become famous were engraved on tablets carried by tortoises. The generations when the scholars were happy with the way the rulers treated the people, they built the tortoises with their heads up. The years they were not, their heads were down.
The tortoise and the crane were supposed to be an instpiration to students: the tortoise can smell the water but can't get there very fast, so he and the crane help each other out.
Andrea's book on sale in the temple! (second row from the bottom, third from the right)
The city's old colonial buildings are used as government ofices.
Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum (we didn't see the body, which no one is sure is real).
Visiting pagodas (in Vietnam, a pagoda is where you pray to the Buddah, a temple is for praying to historical figures).
This turtle lived in the Hoan Kiem Lake and was killed when the US bombed the city. Another one, even bigger, has been spotted in the water.
Me and Dad.
Pigs on the back of a motorbike!
Outside of Hanoi, driving through smaller towns and the countryside on the way to the Perfume Pagoda.
Cemetary in the middle of the rice fields.
The perfume pagoda - after taking an hour-long canoe ride up a river, you take a tram to the top of a mountain, then walk down into a cave.
This is the entrance to the cave, the "dragon's mouth". The stone in the middle is called the dragon's tongue, and during times of famine people used to go here to pray for rice.
There are lots of different places in the cave to pray for diferent things.
At the back of the cave is a shrine to Buddah.
At the bottom of the mountain are shops and places to buy food that cater to all the people who visit the pagodas.
Lunch.
Puppies! Have you ever seen so many?
Since it was the off season, the restaurant was almost empty.
More puppies!
The canoes.
It's called the "Perfume Pagoda" because the mountain is covered in frangipane trees that drop their flowers everywhere.
The food the stalls sell is to offer to the Buddah, but then people eat it.
While visitors are at the pagodas, the rowers hang out and play cards.
The Perfume Pagoda is the most visited pagoda in the country, and during the area's main festival, the river is completely full of boats.
After the Perfume Pagoda we stopped at the "silk village" where silk is made. These cards guide the weaving machines in their complicated patterns.
Taking a walk around the lake.
The hotel. Very colonial.
The old quarter of Hanoi.
The market in the old city.
Jun 27, 12:43 PM − Posted in