The last two days in Hanoi

Yesterday, after a sleepless night due to jet lag, we set out to explore the city. Since it is huge and confusing, we booked a guided tour and were lucky: our tour guide Anna (probably not her Vietnamese name :-D) was just for the two of us.

We visited the opera and then the Literature Palace. Anna told us that this was the country's first university, which opened in the 12th century. Afterwards, we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, the resting place of the first President of Vietnam, who declared Vietnam's independence in 1945. Unfortunately, we could not see his embalmed body as it is only open for morning visits. The reason for this is that Ho Chi Minh actually wanted to be cremated after his death. However, the state did not allow it, so at least he is given his rest in the afternoon... Crazy logic! In the end, we had a traditional egg coffee (highly recommended!).

In the evening, we naturally had the best spring rolls again at our new buddy William's place and due to various circumstances, we were awake for so long that we slept until one o'clock today. After that, we visited the prison where mainly regime opponents were held during the French colonial period. It is truly shocking that until the 1950s, prisoners lived in their own excrement, were tortured, and even executed by guillotine.

Then we went to the famous Train Street, a narrow street with bars and shops on the side, where you can walk comfortably on the tracks, but still, a train passes a few times a day. And there it was, the first tourist trap that I fell into: one of the many street vendors with a tray around her belly handed me some fried balls that tasted like cardboard and I had to pay 4€ for them - for the same price you can have dinner here..... Aaaargh and they don't even taste good.

Oh well, for dinner, William's delicious spring rolls awaited us again, this time at the second location of his restaurant. When we arrived, the employee was unfortunately sleeping on the chair in her restaurant and Christina tried to wake her up gently :D the next hurdle was that this employee didn't speak English and had to call her son, who then took our order in English over the phone and translated it to his mother in Vietnamese. The food was still delicious and we had the leftover spring rolls packed... We are already looking forward to the midnight snack and urgently need to research how to import this delicacy to Germany :D maybe there are freight forwarders reading this who could help us? :D

What else is there to say? The city has many facets, from wide boulevards in affluent neighborhoods to crowded narrow streets in the old quarter. The traffic sometimes makes it impossible to cross the road as there are no traffic lights. After 4 days, we have figured it out: at dangerous spots, we stick with the locals and run across the street right beside them....

Tomorrow we will continue to the island of Cat Ba!