Hanoi - December 17th

We get up today at about 9am to say goodbye to the departing tour group members, before we go out to finish our shopping and buy the few presents that we never bought.  At the same time we did a bit more sightseeing, more around the lake, and at the cathedral, but the emphasis was on shopping (not necessarily by me).  Dorota got herself some bargains before we went for a Bun lunch, which turns out to be a lot like a Pho lunch, except there are slightly different ingredients (pork instead of beef) and it is more work.  Due to the extra work I think Pho is my favourite.

After lunch we had planned to do some more shopping, heading up to the local market, but we got a phone call from home that changed our mood.  As most people reading this will now know Dorota’s sister took a tumble and broke some bones, but she is now on the road to recovery.  But at the time we were quite concerned, so we headed straight back to the hotel to begin checking out if we could get home any faster.  But as better news came through we ended up thinking our original plan of flying direct to Warsaw the next day was about as good a plan as we can get.

In the evening we took the remaining members of our group to a restaurant we had had recommended to us by the inflight magazine on our Vietnam Airlines flight.  By being in a group we are able to take our minds off our troubles.  The restaurant itself is built as a food court of all these street food stalls, supposedly so we can eat street food in a clean environment, but actually we see rats running around in it as well.  I say we see them; actually the staff themselves point them out to us, which is a bit strange. 

Having said that it is still a nice meal and a distraction.