Hanoi

And so back into Viet Nam - Hanoi - the administrative capital whereas Saigon is the commercial centre, and although smaller Hanoi still boasts some 5m motor cycles, it seems that the variety of goods carried on them isn’t nearly as varied as in Saigon.  That said, we did manage a couple of good ones:-

The weather in Hanoi was a nasty shock, we'd been enjoying 29-32 degC and sunshine and suddenly it was about 14 degC and overcast.  We started off with a visit to the outside of Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum, which was very heavily guarded although against what we weren't sure.  There is some doubt as to whether it's actually his body as he died in 1969 and the mausoleum wasn't built until 1973!!!

All these workers do is examine the grass inch by inch for weeds

The official residence, although the benevolent Uncle Ho later moved to a far simpler building and apparently spent a lot of time planting trees around the lake.

I loved this "Not Stop On Bridge" sign

 

Unfortunately we were whisked around a couple of museums at great speed even for me (my low tolerance of museums is well known), which is a shame as the Ethnology Museum was actually very interesting showing the various hill tribes and cultures in Viet Nam. 

At the Temple of Literature

 

In the afternoon we had a rickshaw ride around the Old Quarter and Hoan Kiem Lake, but I have to say given the very high levels of traffic fumes and the standard of driving it wasn't the most pleasant experience but still I managed to get a few pictures