Back to Hanoi

Thursday 15th March

We started the day with a lovely breakfast in the Resort's restaurant - a beautiful setting and so many choices of food!  The secret is to know when to stop but this is a skill I've yet to develop.

View of the Internet room as seen from the restaurant

We settled the bill and climbed aboard the airport taxi to return to Danang for our flight back to Hanoi.   The Hoi An to Danang road is lined with kilometres of resort-type developments including a Greg Norman designed golf course.

"Study and follow the moral example of Ho Chi Minh"

After another quick and easy flight, we arrived back in Hanoi.  Unlike our first disastrous taxi ride from the airport, this time we were driven in a quite luxurious and spotlessly clean car which didn't require any pushing to reach its destination.

After settling back into the Charming II it was time to hit the shops.  Our first visit was to Kangaroo Cafe to ask Max's advice about where to find motorbike boots.  One of the staff did some Googling for us and found what John was looking for at a shop in the Old Quarter, not far from our hotel. Unfortunately, despite the boots being on the website, when we found the shop they did not have the boots and said that they couldn't order them in.  Disappointing, as we'd hoped to take advantage of the good Vietnamese prices - so I bought a decent quality light rain jacket instead.  The lack of boots solved the problem of what sized bag to buy for bringing our purchases home.  As we didn't need to fit in a pair of boots, we went to the market and bought a light zip up bag.  As we're going to have it plastic-wrapped at the airport, we didn't need it to be too sturdy.  It has a nice little metal label on one side that says 'Fashionable'.  Hmm, I think that might be a matter of opinion.

A typical view when strolling the streets of Hanoi

John just had to have one of the army green pith helmets that we've seen around and the markets were the right place to find such a thing.  We wandered around the streets for the afternoon and found a few more bits and pieces to add to our gifts/souvenirs stash.  We dropped back into the hotel to leave our shopping and had a nice fashion shoot with Rose and Mary from the hotel.

Do the hats look best on Mary and Rose...

...or John and Kate?

Locals dining across the road from the Charming II

We finished the evening with dinner at the City View Cafe near the lake.  This was a great place to watch the crazy traffic while sitting back relaxing.  We were very impressed when one of our fellow diners launched a paper plane which glided across the road and landed on the window ledge of a restaurant across the road!  She was rewarded with a round of applause.

View from the City View Cafe

No shortage of bread here!

Back at the hotel, we packed our new 'fashionable' bag with things we won't need on the flight home.  As we've got a few hours in the morning before we have to leave for the airport, we plan one more stroll around the Old Quarter to finish off our time in Hanoi.