good morning vietnam

hanoi is a law unto itself. granted its a fantastic city with plenty to offer and some amazing places to visit, it is however a city where anything can happen at the drop of a hat. after returning to the city from our ha long bay trip we set off to find a guest house in a 'desirable' area and explore the city. once finding a place that was ok we set off only to find ourselves quickly immersed in the culture and diversity of the old quarter. often en route to complete mundane tasks like visit the post office, we would stumble across something out of this world; it was truly the definition of where the old and new meet.

we ended up meeting with laura and rohan again and had a couple of memorable evenings on the town. the first consisting of getting stuck in the middle of a soccer-winning riot and the second being an afternoon christmas picnic around hoan kiem lake, the liquid heart of hanoi. the sights and smells of the city have left me undecided as to weather or not i would return but we had some exciting experiences and some instances we would rather forget. all in all, hanoi was the perfect way to end part one of the trip before heading into part two of the trip: china and japan.

pics. hanoi shopping street, outdoor kitchen at street stall, drinks and christmas picnic with laura and rohan, street by day and then by night (behing the boys having a beer), when you cant beat em' - join em as we joined the victory celebrations on the street.