Saturday - 14 April 2013

Hi everyone!  A little bit late getting this blog done but a bit hard when there is no access to the internet.  Awake early this morning as we had to check out of our guesthouse.  Breakfast in guesthouse dining room, packed and then ready to explore again for most of the day.  We head of to Sa Pa tonight on the train which is an 8 hour overnight trip.  We checked out of hotel at 12 noon so had 8 hours to explore more of Hanoi because we are homeless till we get to Sa Pa.   I found on Trip advisor a review about some markets here in Ha Noi  called the Hang Da markets where you can buy lots of new and used clothing as we need some warm clothes or at least jackets for Sa Pa.  Map in hand we walked for miles through the old Quarter looking for these markets and bugger it we were just going around in circles so ended up giving up and headed off to the Military Museum, we got there at quarter to one only to find that it closes at 1pm for lunch for an hour.  Lucky for us there were two middle aged Vietnamese men parked on their motorbikes outside of the Museum and offered to show us around wherever we wanted to go on their motorbikes, we agreed on a price and Rick went with one and I with the other on the back of their motor scooters.  We got them  first to take us to Hang Da market that we couldn't find early in the day and it was a good market small but with heaps of clothes old and new, so Rick got some new runners and socks and I got a couple of second hand warm jackets and nice shirt and pants.  Shopping done we then had the guys take us to the One Pillar Pagoda, very nice area and so peaceful next door to that was the Ho Chi Minh museum and so decided to check that out as well, it had the history of Ho Chi Minh himself and the battle of Vietnam over the history of the country, quite interesting.  We had our taxi scooter guys drop us off at Hoan Kiem Lake and just wandered through the streets then walked around the lake, heaps of the local people were at the lake, seems to be where they all hang out especially on the weekends.  That done it was time to sit and have a coffee in a café and late lunch, our legs and feet were killing us and we still had a few hours before we had to go back to the hotel and pick up our backpack to go to the train station for our trip.  Another trip through the night markets and then off to the station.  We boarded the train at 9.30pm and because we wanted a sleeper cabin to ourselves had to pay for the whole 4 berth cabin, not expensive anyway and it beats giving up your privacy and sharing with 2 strangers.  On the train and all settled in for the night.  In 8 hours we will be in Sa Pa.  Woo Hoo!!!!!!!  Posted a few photos on earlier blog of our day today so enjoy.