Hanoi

The flight from Phnom Penh to Hanoi via Vientiane was fairly comfortable. I'm certainly getting a lot better at this flying lark, although we had the pleasure of a nice jet-engined Fokker 70 rather than the propeller job of the last one!!

We arrived in Hanoi about 6 and then had our (well my) worst experience with customs. Several flights had landed all at once and so there was several queues. Dave and I got in separate queues but about the same way back. We moved fairly steadily until, with about ten people in front of me, my queue ground to a halt as the customs agent spent about five minutes with one person. She proceeded to do this with every one, and all the other queues sailed forward and I even saw, with about five people in front of me, Dave collecting our bags from the carousel. Needless to say I wasn't in a good mood!!

We taxi-ed into Hanoi and made for the Old Quarter. Our hotel was nothing special but then we didn't plan to hang around too long! We checked in and then immediately headed out because it was World Cup time and Germany were playing Costa Rica. We were directed towards a promisingly named Bar Street and a bar called the Funky Monkey. It was pretty much empty but they did promise to show the football so we had a few beers and watched. The game was good but the bar wasn't so we had a quick look to see whether there were any better alternatives for the England game the following day.

The next day we had a bit of a lie-in before heading out to explore Hanoi. We wandered back down past the bar towards Hoan Kielm lake in the centre of the old quarter and the Ngoc Son (Jade Mountain) Temple. The temple itself wasn't anything special but its location was - set on a small island in the middle of the lake linked by small bridge. It was very picturesque and made even more so by the light rain which was almost ever present during our stay in Hanoi.

We then had an entertaining half hour trying to send a parcel which involved getting various too big boxes and then after having sealed everything in with tape, the lady told me she needed to see everything. Thankfully she then found a decent sized box and wrapped it all up in brown paper for me. Now we just have to see if it gets home!

We headed towards the Hoa Lo Prison (better known as the Hanoi Hilton where American Air Force POWs were kept) but that was closed for lunch so we got our own before heading back. On the way I bought a 'Good Morning Vietnam' t-shirt and also found their international football shirt. I bought them from a delightful old lady who spoke no English at all and we communicated by hand signals.

The prison was a strange contrast to all that we had seen earlier in Cambodia, as although it was obviously a place that seen a lot of suffering, it didn't compare to the Cambodian sites.

Most of the prison exhibits related to the Vietnamese political prisoners held there by the French during its time as a French colony.

This included a large model of the prison before part was demolished for a hotel; two guillotines; examples of a large cell where many prisoners were kept shackled up and a small cell for solitary confinement and, most impressive of all, a section of the sewer used by a large-scale escape (successful too).

The American section was a bit of propaganda overload:

From August 5,1964 to January 24, 1973, US Government carried out two destruction wars by air and navy against North Vietnam. The Northern Army and people brought down thousands of aircraft and hundreds of American pilots. Though having committed untold crimes on our people, but American pilots suffered no revenge once they were captured and detained. Instead they were well treated with adequate food, clothing and shelter.

They showed lots of photos of the American pilots being treated well and the captions were also more propaganda overload. Of course, given the Americans never declared war on Vietnam technically the Geneva Convention doesn't apply (Guantanamo Bay anyone?) but there you go.

The prison was very interesting but it is a shame they knocked so much down.

We wandered back through the Old Quarter and past the lake. Got chatting to two Vietnamese boys about English football. Amazing how much they knew but sadly nothing at all about Vietnamese football.

Packed up our stuff ready for our Halong Bay trip before heading out to watch the England game. We were planning to go to an outdoor cafe but met two guys in England shirts who told us they were going to a place down the road. We ate at the first place (Vietnamese style Lemon Chicken) and then headed over. There was a good 20 English people in the pub and it had a good atmosphere even if the game wasn't.