12 january: hanoi day 2

We certainly made up for yesterday with a jam packed day of sightseeing today in hanoi. We met Duong at 8:30, our best tour guide yet with an amazing fluency in english and a great sense of humor. He proceeded to take us on a whirlwind tour of what seemed like every pagoda and museum in the city. Notable highlights included:

- the "hanoi hilton" where POWs were kept during the war. Its really just a museum now because, get this, about 90 percent of it has been torn down to build condominiums behind it. You can walk through the three sections where they'd keep vietnamese men, women and americans, shackled by their ankles to concrete slabs that they'd sit or lie on all day. There are a few photos of McCain's visit a few years ago and even some from when he was imprisoned there. Probably most interesting is the propaganda laced throughout the american section, where the signs show pictures of prisoners cooking and playing games with captions that indicate they quite enjoyed their stay.

- a "cyclo tour" through the old city, which is kind of like a horse and buggy but the buggy is up front and the horse is some dude on a bike that, as andrew put it, had to pedal our asses around for an hour (the guy who got stuck with andrew was displeased). We really felt kind of silly when the six year olds who got let out of school were leaving us in their dust on their walks home. but hey, as dave reale would say, when in rome....

- a stop at Duong's favorite cafe, in all its authentic glory. We sat on stools that were, no joke, about 8" squares approximately 8" off the ground. Let's just say some of our beefier american brethren would have needed to sling a few together. We enjoyed some delicious coffee and chatted about vietnamese culture with the crowded, tiny streets of the old quarter as our backdrop. Life is beautiful.

- a water puppet show, where we took in the ancient vietnamese tradition of making wooden puppets "act out" scenes in the water. Interestingly, their puppet masters stand behind curtains about six feet behind the puppets, manipulating their movements with broomsticks while physically standing in the water. Bad description, but lucky for you we've also got it caught on video. Yeah, you read that right - kim took 2 (two) videos of the water puppet show. Hooray for technology.

All in all a looong but great day.

Went to a dud restaurant that's not worth recommending, and officially decided that frommer's is not the authority on vietnamese dining. Granted, some of the fab places we've gone have also been in the book but there have been one too many subpar recs in our opinion. Luckily we're mostly going on local suggestions and can't complain about our aggregate eating experience. In fact, we could probably stand do a bit less of it, but then what's vacation for?

Next up: cruise along halong bay