Hanoi is the land of motorbikes, yellow French-style buildings, and eating on sidewalks. We got in late, and were staying in the heart of the Old Quarter, near a lot of attractions and definitely the center of night life. We walked around and snacked, and the German curry wurst was a nice surprise. After way too many beers, we turned in to wake up early and tackle Hanoi.

Looking at our map, it was a sea of green dots that we wanted to check out. Hanoi has a bunch of museums and temples, an absurd amount for the size of the city. So to quickly go through some of the attractions we saw during our time here:

• Museum of National History - Nice, it focused on Vietnam's past prior to modern times. A lot of really cool artifacts and impressive stuff from the various Emperors they've had.

• Vietnamese Women's Museum - Pretty good, I really liked the different clothing they had from minority groups. They also had a "day in the life" kind of profiles of market workers, which was interesting.

• Revolution Museum - Boring, lots of old photos with no context.

• Vietnam National Fine Arts Museum - I don't get art. Ella liked it. There were pretty things.

• Vietnam Military History Museum - More my speed, although I was a little disappointed by the lack of actual weapons or vehicles. They had a few, but the one in Ho Chi Minh City was much better. Still, they had some captured American tanks and planes, which was cool to see.

• B52 Victory Museum - Small, free, and maybe abandoned? There were no other people there, and it looked like nobody had been in years. They have a shot down B52 as well as some other anti-aircraft weapons.

• Thang Long Citadel - The Emperor's pad when the capital was moved to Hanoi, also used as a bunker and military command during the war. Large and a cool place to get some photos, but nothing standout.

• Quan Thanh Temple - Ella said this was a temple with Toaist, Confucianist, and a bunch of other religious symbolism thrown in. Sort of like with Cao Dai, it's the "shotgun" approach to religion. I didn't have the context to enjoy it, still a sort of nice looking temple.

• Saint Joseph's Cathedral - Pretty cool, I liked the outside more than the inside because it was so dirty - almost like it was abandoned. Worth a look if you pass by.

• Ho Chi Minh Museum - This place must have been designed by Salvador Dali. It's a weird collection of quotes, letters, and various objects from HCM, but the layout is some sort of trippy drug induced mess. "This exhibit takes inspiration from the form of the human brain." Wonderful, please direct me to the human brain's restrooms and coffee shop.

• Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum - Wanna see a dead body? You line up surrounded by soldiers, and they escort you into a marble stone structure. You go upstairs and walk around a balcony on three sides, with an elevated glass box on the same level as you. Below there are guards standing at attention. Of course in the box is HCM, who doesn't look exactly like his photos. But I guess being dead for 50 years will do that. No photos, no talking. Kind of creepy and serene at the same time.

Phew! See, I told you there were a lot. And I'm sure there are a hundred other small little places you could check out. For the size of Hanoi, I'm really impressed at just how much there is to do. So let's talk about the places that deserve more than a sentence or two.

And let's begin by bringing everything back down - Hoa Lo Prison, AKA The Hanoi Hilton. I wanted to see it just for its infamous reputation. Most of it has been demolished, humorously replaced by luxury apartments and a shopping center. The parts they did keep are mostly the administration buildings and a few cells.

And to answer the obvious question, "Did they cover up how horrific it was?", Yes and no. They went into great detail about how terrible the French were to the Vietnamese when they were in charge. When talking about the American War though, they unironically said that the Americans called it The Hanoi Hilton since it was more like a resort than prison. They also had lots of photos of the prisoners doing different things like playing basketball, going to church, etc.. Always a small group of mostly the same people.

And I don't mean to tear down their argument, I imagine if the situation was reversed a US Museum would mostly focus on the same, albeit with some understanding of sarcasm. When we learned about the prison in school, I'd imagine western education focused more on the bad while Vietnamese education focused more on the good. Somewhere in the middle there's some truth, so I'm glad to get both sides of the story to try and parse it out.

Later we went to a neighborhood where a train passes between some houses, and a really chill guy came out of his house to welcome us. He went and bought a bench for tourists and offered them coffee so they could watch the train, all for free. We spoke a bit about the relationship with the US (TLDR: Vietnam doesn't care, it's ancient history) and some of the problems we face. (Vietnam has issues, but at least they don't have a gun problem.)

No disagreements there.

The train passing through was pretty cool, similar to the train in Thailand's Meklong Market. Except this train was reaaaally close. My back was against the wall and I could still reach out and touch the train. Good for a photo, but it's hard to get a sense for how unique this place is unless you go yourself.

Another place where photos don't do a good job is the Water Puppet show. A sort of traditional Vietnamese art form, it has puppets that dance around on the surface of the water. They control them with a long pole and strings behind a curtain, and it's actually really cool - better than I'd expect. The water hides all the workings so it looks very realistic. Combine it with some music and it's a good time, for only $3. There were multiple acts, that told stories about a cat that stole a fisherman's catch, a turtle who returned a sword to a king, and Three-for-One Taco Tuesday. (My Vietnamese is a bit rusty). The only disappointing thing were the tourists. This group of older western tourists spent the entire time recording with an iPad on full brightness, constantly standing up and leaving, talking, and just being a big pain in the ass. Am I back in China? "Western tourist" is a super broad brush to use, but that's just embarrassing. Have some class.

The unclassy western tourist train kept on going, because one day we stopped in to see a pagoda on a lake called Tran Cuoc. It was a bit of a walk to get there, but nothing too bad. Apparently one person thought it was pretty terrible though. For whatever reason, when we got up to the gate, it was locked. Maybe because Tet (Vietnamese New Year) was so close, they decided to close up and go home. Oh well, we said, shrugging our shoulders and walking back. Then this middle aged man and a woman sporting a "I want to speak to the manager" haircut came up, saw the same, and the lady had a temper tantrum. She channeled her inner Eric Cartman, and let out an amazingly loud...

"Shyiiiaaat! SHYIT!"

I don't know how to spell it. It is a sound more befitting of beast than human. It was "shit", but drawn out and accented in such a strange way, I would swear they were trying to mock someone. Clearly the classy thing to do around a temple as people, you know, prayed. As we were walking back, although out of earshot, she kept fussing. Yes, that's right lady. Vietnam owes you for not letting you take photos of some graves of people you don't know. Anyway, another inside joke to add to the list!

Overall, I was impressed by Hanoi. I was really surprised at how much there is to do. It reminds me a bit of Taipei, in that you could easily spend a week here and not run out of stuff. It's one of those rare places that is just packed full, both of things and motorbikes. When I got here, I was thinking "Yeah, I could see myself living here." And then even after getting used to just throwing yourself in traffic and knowing that people will bike around you, I changed my mind. I like Hanoi, really. But I think living here would be a bit difficult. It doesn't change the fact that I really enjoyed Vietnam overall. It reminds me of a hard working Thailand. The people still know how to cut loose and have fun, and are overall a very happy bunch of folks that I really enjoyed interacting with. And at the same time, if you need something, you don't have to wait for them to wake up from their nap or get to a save point in their game. It's sort of like the best aspects of Thailand and other... more industrious places rolled into one. With delicious, cheap, and comparatively healthy food to boot.

We got some food and coffee and then went off to the airport. For fun, we decided to make our dinner a bunch of Vietnamese snacks (because we're healthy like that), and make a video at the airport of us trying them all. So here we go!