Hanoi

Our next stop on this trip was Vietnam! We started in Hanoi and were spending three days here. I also was able to use my credit card points to book a hotel, unfortunately it was a ways out of the city, but taxi's are super cheap so it was definitely worth it. Having a big comfy bed was such a change from the hostels we have been staying in.

One of the days we took a day trip to Ninh Binh. Our tour guide called it Ha Long Bay on land, and we opted for Ninh Binh because we are more mountain people than water people. We booked the tour through Viator and it was a whole-day affair with a tour and three locations! This location was the Mua caves and there was a mountain to climb and also some caves to explore.

Dragon carving at the top of the long long set of stairs.

The views from the top! The many rocks just jutting out of the land were so strange to see, like how?

We also took a boat ride at Tam Coc, super beautiful.

The people rowing the boats used their feet to push the paddles, very smart and much more power per push than arms.

Along the way we stopped for lunch and rode bikes around a tiny town, our first foray into navigating the roads on wheels. Even though it was a not busy place at all, there were some cars and motorcycles and I was terrified at some points (mostly when we went around roundabouts.)

We also went to Hua Lu, the ancient capital of Vietnam.

There were temples to the first and second kings of the country. Nice gardens and lots of incense.

The next day we explored the old city, including Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. Interesting that it is not in HCMC and instead Hanoi. Lots of soldiers were around, but they weren't super serious, they would pick up little kids and take pictures with people, and in the back corner of the complex we found the barracks for these guys and they were out in the yard playing volleyball.

Truly don't remember everything we saw, we just walked around and took pictures of anything interesting. The navigating all the streets was its own attraction, you just had to walk and not stop. 

The infamous train street. The train passes a bunch of times each day, and we went about an hour before it was due to arrive so that we could get a seat at a cafe with a good view. It is a super colorful street and it is nice that no motorbikes are allowed. Probably the only place in the city where you get a respite from the exhaust.

We arrived in Vietnam a day after new years and there were lots of decorations up, but all the celebrations were over unfortunately. And japan did not have anything to celebrate :(

This is a really interesting story, so you'd think its some kind of cathedral right? Turns out that this is a person's house. A singular very rich guy. Apparently, he owns a very successful concrete company, and the thing that is all the rage for rich people is to build very elaborate European-looking houses. Can you imagine living in basically a cathedral???