Hanoi

Hi all, arrived in Hanoi about lunchtime on a plane from Hue. Hotel in Hanoi is not up to usual standards, but is well located. This afternoon we had a little orientation walk around near the lake and had some drinks at the place where the rest of the team were going to have dinner. Not me and Mark it was overpriced and rubbish.

Instead mark and I went off tonight in search of the La Fer Vert or Green Fairy bar at the Hotel de Opera, also expensive but so much nicer.

On the way down, I contacted my other friends Greg & Lisa and Chris Bonython, who had arrived this afternoon in Hanoi from Australia and were staying the the very swish Sofitel Legend, an old French architecture building in Hanoi and possibly the best hotel in Hanoi.  We stopped in for drinks (absinthe) and said brief hellos and catch ups and then we left them to dinner and us to the Green fairy bar.

We had some genuine absinthe served the traditional way by being poured over a sugar cube and then set alight. Very nice, very expensive.

On the way back stopped at an Italian ice cream place, seemingly owned by a Frenchman and the ice cream was very nice, not the world's best, but very nice.

Crossing the Red River coming into Hanoi on the new Billion $ road and bridge built by the Japanese and only opened in jan 2015.

Some Hanoi houses on the way into town

View across the street from Hotel

Hotel Legend 2

Cyclio driver (get to go on one tomorrow) 

View from Cafe towards old quarter of Hanoi

The Lake

Bridge across Lake to Island temple

Greg Parkinson at Sofitel Bar

Absinthe at Green Fairy bar

pour over the sugar cube

Set on Fire

Let burn a bit

King Kong movie showing in Courtyard

Street Food stall

Lastly, this is a piece of Video one of the other riders (Kevin & Peta) took a few days ago before arriving at Hue. It shows a Bus passing. It gets really scary when you have 2  busses wanting to push through whilst having another two busses coming from the other direction, mixed in with trucks and cars and bikes on windy mountain road and going downhill. If you want to travel by road in Vietnam, uses Busses, they are fast and rule the roads, everything else gets out of their way, including trucks.

Tomorrow, sightseeing in Hanoi.