This morning we left our hotel at 8.30am. Originally the plan was to go to Hanoi, then later in the day travel to Quinny/our tour guide's family's village and meet his family. However due to the Tet/new year holiday period still going on, Quinny couldn't find a bus to take us. Our lovely driver from Halong Bay to Hanoi offered to drive us straight there from Halong Bay though!! So we arrived about 12.30 in Quinny's village.
Here we met his parents, his brother, his sister-in-law and his niece and nephew (so cute!!). They couldn't speak any English but were all so friendly and welcoming. We had a huge lunch, although I didn't eat too much of it. There was a pork dish, cabbage dish and beef dish, I ate all of those. Then there was a plate of chicken that had the head and feet to eat as well. I avoided that one like the plague, but Nathan and Emily tried a bit of them - yuck!! Then there was a pork slice thing that apparently had cartilage in it so I gave that one a miss as well. Quinny wanted us all to try rice wine which is 45% alcohol volume. We did our 'Mot, hai, ba, yoooooo' (1, 2, 3, cheers) chant about 30 times and he wanted us to drink each time. It tasted like rocket fuel to me though, so I had a little bit but not much. Also I now have a cold so didn't want to drink much anyway (wish my immune system would work for part of the holiday!!!). I did drink an entire huge Hanoi beer though which I actually quite liked (be proud dad!!!!).
The end result of all these 'mot, hai, ba, yooooo!' chants was that all but about three or four of us ended up rather drunk in the middle of the afternoon!!!!! Was pretty funny for those of us who were fine. We gave the little kids a cuddle, took a group photo and were on our way. All through the village people looked at us strangely. If we hadn't stood out before, our now mostly drunken group of westerners definitely stood out now hahaha.
The bus ride to Hanoi was a very loud one and resulted in several people (not me or I would have killed them) having beer tipped over their heads. I was quite glad to get to our (quiet) hotel room and then Laura and I went exploring by ourselves. Hanoi still has quite a few shops closed for Tet but even so it is very bustling and busy. We went for a nice walk around Hoan Kiem Lake and joked we were on a nice romantic date (sorry Brad!). There were people everywhere dressed in their best outfit they had purchased for Tet taking very posed photos around the lake. I was repping the $4 leggings from K-Mart and a singlet, oops!!
We went to the Ngoc Son Temple. Students were half price here which is the first instance of student rates we have come across, which is lucky because idiot me forgot my student card. But I just walked up and said student and she gave me a ticket. Very different to Europe where you're given the third degree everywhere you go!!! The temple was so full of people that it sort of took away from enjoying the architecture and everything, but I still liked it. It was on a little island in the middle of the lake, and there was a stuffed tortoise that used to live in the lake inside, which was 2m long!!
We walked the rest of the way around the lake and enjoyed the lights coming on as it got dark, as well as pretty Tet flowers everywhere!
For some reason Quinny has made dinner at 8pm tonight instead of 7pm. We decided we couldn't wait that long, so bought a huge loaf of bread and some laughing cow and had a bread and cheese feast. Think I'll just have a juice and something small at dinner!!!
Tomorrow we have a full day for exploration of Hanoi, can't wait!!
And can I just say before I wrap it up today that I made it to 5,500 hits on my blog! Thanks so much for tuning in and reading about our adventures, on both this trip and others. I know I have some followers in the UK now too due to travelling with your family members or friends, so special mentions go to those reading from the UK!!
Love to all
Claire and Laura
Xoxox
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