Hanoi, Vietnam: 8th – 10th November

On Saturday we took the 1 hour flight from Hue to Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam, where the sun is shining. Yay!

We’re staying in a hotel in the middle of the Old Quarter, which is amazing, full of quaint buildings and narrow alleys, and lots of motorbikes. All of the streets are themed, so you have one selling only flowers, one for lanterns, one for leather etc. Most of these stem from the old guild system set up 500 years ago. However there are some modern takes, such as ‘cigarette street’, ‘powdered baby milk street’, ‘Barbie street’ and ‘bad clothes street’. I kid you not.

At the center of the old quarter is a huge lake, which is very pretty and reminds us slightly of central park in New York.

We’ve spent the last couple of days mooching around and visited the Temple of Literature, one of Vietnam’s most famous temples, dating from the 11th century and really lovely!

Matt decided to take latent inspiration from the Cambodian Buddhist monks and got a grade 0, now he just needs an orange outfit and some Jesus creepers to complete the look!