01.04 - Day 77 - Hanoi

Monday 1st April - Hanoi (Day 77)

After the late night last night for Seb we’re expecting him to lay in. We’re also expecting 36 degrees during the day - our trip to Vietnam bookended by extreme heat of 35+ degree in Saigon and now Hanoi - so I sneak out the room at 6:30am to explore before the heat is too much. The small front of house market stalls in the alley of our hotel are already a buzz - from fruits and vegetables, herbs, hunks of raw meat, fish in pieces and fish slithering in large plastic tubs. 

I walk west 20 minutes and arrive at the area containing the former President Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. To get close I pass through airport style scanning security and then I’m one of only half a dozen people in front of the imposing cube shape, with square edges columns, the final resting place of Uncle Ho. Most days you can actually go in and past his body, but it’s not the right of passage for me as it is for locals so I content myself watching the changing of the guard - sharply dressed in crisp white suits. 

Around to the side there is also the One Pillar Pagoda, a small ornate but square pagoda resting on a wide pole in a duck water pond. I seem to be the only visitor, the food and drink stall holders just arriving to start unpacking for the day. I amble back to Little Hanoi Deluxe past various Embassies in time for breakfast for all of us. 

In the heat, the plan for the next few days is short trips out with aircon breaks back at our centrally located hotel. Kate and Sienna head out shoe shopping; Kate’s favourite (and only) Birkenstocks having bitten the dust on this trip through the humidity (and age). It seems everything is fake, so it’s a case of luck if you get a better quality fake. 

Trying to find a genuine football top is proving a challenge - apparently shirt sponsors pulled out because they simply weren’t selling enough, such is the predisposition for a cheap knock off. 

Sienna and I share a beef pho at the same lunch venue as yesterday, whilst Kate and Seb copy their last night Banh Mi dinner. A satisfying coconut ice cream helps cool us down leading to schoolwork back in the room - less so for Seb, struggling with tiredness. 

After more cards and iPad time, Seb completes the Banh Mi daily double as we pick some up at the ever popular Banh Mi Mama, eaten in front of St Joseph’s Cathedral - all the windows lit up against the darkening nightfall sky. Happy April Fools.