ultimatevietnamcambodia2015: Monday 19th October

The Tirant Hotel has proved to be a good quality base for exploring the city of Hanoi. It is located in the Old Quarter of the city about 4 minutes walk from the lake, which is one of the feature parts of the city.

We stopped off at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum but didn't go in as Ho was undergoing his annual embalming restoration.

Our first place of interest this morning was the Presidential Palace, built under the governorship of Paul Doumer in 1901+. This palace is now used for formal functions, particularly when visiting dignitaries present their papers to the Presidnt of Vietnam, as happened yesterday when a formal motorcade arrived. Up until his death in 1969, Ho refused to use the palace and had a modest timber house built in the grounds. The palace grounds are quite beautiful with mature stands of leafy trees offering relief from the heat and in fact are the remnants of a much larger botanical garden established by the French. Our last place of interest in this area was the One Pillar Pagoda, designed to symbolize the fertility powers of the lotus flower.

The Temple of Literature was the next main stop before lunch. This temple was built in 1070AD and features on the back of the 100,000 dong note. It was used to promote Confucianism and as a university to educate the elite from 1076 until 1779 when the Nguyen Dynasty moved the centre of learning to the new capital in Hue. Restoration of the temple has been ongoing, the most recent in 2000.

Lunch was at KOTO, a training hospitality centre for disadvantaged youth. It was undoubtedly the best Vietnamese food experienced on the trip so far and there was widespread agreement that the chicken salad was sensational. After lunch we boarded cyclos individually for our ride through the Old Quarter. Once we got out of the bustle of the busy roads, the narrow streets in this area provided a relaxing observation of the people at work and the myriad of small businesses. Each street seemed to have its own specialty shops like hardware, flowers, food aromatic herbs and spices. There was time for a rest before departing for the 6.30pm session of the water puppets. Having seen this 3 times in the past I wasn't that keen but I was pleasantly surprised how much this had improved and our second row seats added to the experience. I noticed more sophistication with the puppetry and the synchronization at times was brilliant, as was the live traditional orchestra.

Dinner was a Tinh upgrade at Jacksons and we were treated to a delicious western style meal with a free drink thrown in. Tomorrow we are off to Halong Bay.