Hoan Kiem Lake

Hello dear ones,

Finally, I found some time again to share something with you. So far, a lot has happened.

In Hanoi, I stayed for a total of three days. After I saw one part of the city, which seems to be dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, I explored the 'tourist district' the next day. Suddenly, everything was crowded with tourists here. The shops are filled with all kinds of souvenirs, most of which are unfortunately cheap plastic toys. The smell of spices was gone. All that remains is the smog and stench of dirty streets as you would expect from such cities. Hello reality.

But besides that, there is a very sweet little lake in the center, which you can walk around wonderfully. At noon, I visited the 'Jade Mountain Temple' which has nothing to do with jade at all. The temple is located on a small island (red bridge in the pictures) in the middle of the lake and is dedicated to a legend. In the 15th century, the hero Le Loi defeated the Chinese in a battle. He used a magic sword that he had previously caught in the aforementioned lake while fishing. 10 years later, he wanted to return the sword to the spirit of the lake. This appeared to him in the form of a huge golden turtle, which took the sword with it. In fact, until 2016, a very large turtle of a rare species lived in that lake, which was allegedly 400 years old.

Later, I watched a water puppet theater, which is also traditional here. The rice farmers invented it centuries ago to pass their time.

In addition, by chance, the Bold&Light Festival took place here on January 10th. There was a huge open-air event with many music groups. I met the first German there, with whom I spent the evening and the festival. I had already uploaded videos of it on WhatsApp.

By the way: German spring rolls actually taste better than the ones here, as there is a lot of frying here and it unfortunately only tastes like fat. But it was worth a try.

The next day, I was in the city just wandering around and talking to locals until my night bus went to the next city: Cao Bang