Day 11: Hanoi

Today I left Hue to go to Hanoi. Arrived in Hanoi and noticed all the beautiful French aritecture. The tall thin french buildings, which were elegantly decorated on the outside, reminded me of a tall elegant french woman, the buildings were all along the drive from airport to the city. Hanoi is a cute city and definitely has more of the Euro/French feel than Saigon does. It is also more relaxed and spread out. It was finally nice to get some bread as the city is loaded with crossiants, french breads, pastries, etc.... Got to the hotel which was called 'Lucky' hotel and the hotel clerk told me I needed to pay the driver $10 for the ride, I was pretty astonished as when I booked the hotel they told me free service was included. We argued for awhile and he agreed to drop the price than he told me the trip to Halong Bay I had purchased was sharing a room and not for one person, a bit shocked as the tour guide I had booked it thru told me I would get my own room, he was happy to offer me an upgrade for $15 dollars, figuring I didn't want to guess who my roommate was I decided to get the upgrade. Feeling unlucky at the 'Lucky' hotel after all the things I was told was not true, I decided to go commisserate with some Westerns and headed to the 'Kangaroo Cafe', which is owned by an Aussie. The owner gave me some recommendations of hotels in the area after giving me an earful of how the Americans should have never invaded Vietnam, etc.... I booked myself at the 'Freedom' hotel. I figured I was now free from the unlucky 'Lucky' hotel.

Walked around and headed to Vietnam Museum of Ethnology, which gives a background of all the the different tribes that make up Vietnam, it was pretty imformative. Ended the night going to 'Baguette and Chocolat', which had great food. The rest. has a great concept, it takes disadvantage kids and street kids and trains them for high-end culinary careers.