Welcome to Hanoi. Well, maybe.

Hanoi is two hours from our ship so it is an early departure. There are 1800 fellow passengers but as we exit the ship, guess who cues up behind us! Blanche! Now, she’s not on our tour today but she announces that she’s going out to meet her tour for the day and she has no idea where to go. Fast forward 20 minutes. Rose and Dorothy arrive on the scene and seem to be waiting for someone. I decide to tell them that Blanche was there 20 minutes early. Now, no where in sight. They never found her all day! We were almost as bad. Four of our friends didn’t show up so George ran back into the ship in search. I guess this is the price we pay for organizing our own tours. Oh, another lady shows up without her husband. I’ve learned never to visit a ship doctor. He went for a simple cold and cough and was quarantined in his room for two days and not allowed to tour with us. OK, onward to Hanoi.

Again, let me tell you about the motor scooters. Everywhere! Counted 20 cases of beer on the back of one. Five people on another. They ride 5 abreast in a lane designated just for them. And the horns, Oh my gosh! It is like NYC before the noise ordinance

First stop – The Hanoi Hilton, otherwise known as Maison Centrale. It served as a French prison for hundreds of years before the Viet Nam War. There was a guillotine still intact. Tough place. Little mention of the US pilots there other than one memorial. There was a film stating that the pilots received stellar treatments. Ha. The documentary also referred to the US troops as the ‘Imperialist Americans’. Our guide went on the say that the US promised to return in 1976 but we didn’t keep our promise. Hmmm. Did any of you hear history that way? Like I said, not a real warm welcome.

After a great lunch at another culinary school, we made our way to the Ho Chi Minh complex with his burial site. The grounds were beautiful an the Presidential Palace was quite pretty, too. The Temple of Literature had lots of statues of Cofucius, and other learned men but the most interesting event was George’s t-shirt episode. After bargaining for a few gifts from street vendors, George decides to purchase a VietNam t-shirt. He takes out his money and the vendor grabs a bill from his hand, pretending to take 50,000 dong, but really took a 500,000 bill. At first George walked away. Then he went back. I, all the time, was reminding him of the Hanoi Hilton. He stopped her in the middle of another transaction and insisted she look in her pocket. J, the current buyer, stopped and asked her to take care of George first. After a little scene, he got his money back! J, now our traveling friend, said he pushed his God Button to remedy the situation. He has an imaginary button that is a direct line to God that doesn’t require words or traditional prayer, he says. If he pushes the button, it just means, HELP! George got his help!

We ended the day with a rick shaw ride in the old town. Again, it was the traffic that made it what it was! CRAZY! We are right out there with buses cars and motor scooters. It was a mess and some people were totally freaking out. We visited a beautiful lake right in the city before our long ride back to the ship.