Hanoi Wanderings

My favourite part of being a tourist in the city is having the chance to explore it at random, with no clear destination in mind. I mean to the point of wandering down side streets, getting lost on public transit and then lounging around at a cafe  for hours ordering nothing but iced coffee, when we were actually headed in the direction of a highly praised museum.  

This post is all about meanderings and random photos that otherwise wouldn't have been interesting enough to phone home about.  The 'My Life Is Average' Hanoi photo collection, if you will...

On the day we went out to Hoan Kiem lake, we stumbled upon a small park with a few statuesque thingies and some notable shrubs arranged as figures.  At first glance (from the rear) this looks like a wonderful monument to world peace...

So the Vietnamese are patriotic then.

Oh...well from what I understand (just by looking at it and assuming) it's meant to symbolize the union of North and South Vietnam after the war with the US, but let me just say that if Australia was really that close, the plane journey would have been a hell of a lot faster than 10 hours.  With no lay over in the budget terminal at Singapore.

Rwoaarrr

This guy was in the same park.  Awesome.

A little while later - well a lot later, it took ages for us to cross this busy street - we saw this happen:

Oops, dropped the cooler off the back of my moped.  again.

 On this street. Eventually we got the hang of crossing at the crosswalks.

The following will just be a montage of some streets and alleys in the Old Town,

Another day we ventured out to French Quarter and the Hanoi Opera House.  According to Lonely Planet (I think...) building materials for the opera house were all brought over from France for that authentic feel during the French occupation of Indochina.  Some of the apartments around there are quite stunning in my opinion, and even in the rain the opera house is a stand out building.

We thought this was the opera house at first...it's not.

This one is though...that square was like walking into Little France.

Due to severe sleepiness, I'm going to leave the rest of the photos off until tomorrow.  This is what happens when I stay up late to watch Australian Open Tennis.  To be continued with scenes of West Lake, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum and me in monsoon gear.

- milly