Day 33 - Sunday, Nov. 17 - Hanoi to Siem Reap

National Museum of History

Aside from packing, this morning is for visiting the National Museum of History.  (There are two buildings but the one that interests me is the one that starts with prehistory.)  I have to be out of the room - my home for the past four days and nights - by noon, even though the cab won’t take me to the airport until 3 o’clock.
       Getting to the museum... aye, there’s the rub.  Seek and ye shall not find.  Whether because of the streets blocked for pedestrians only on the week-end or not, the taxi driver drops me off at a busy intersection and points vaguely in a direction where nothing looks museum-ish.  After a bit of foot-fumbling, I ask at a hotel reception desk but they don’t know; then someone points farther down the street.  Still no museum.  So I ask at a McDonald’s (yes, they have them in Hanoi!) and they look it up and point in another direction.
       Then and only then do I find my savior:  the red HoHo Tour Bus from two days ago.  The driver says, “It’s two minutes that way” in yet another direction... and it is!  God love ‘im!  (The whole problem could have been avoided if tourist maps didn’t say it was on Trang Tian Street, which is long, but rather at Number 1 Phan Ngu Lao at the corner, as indicated on the museum’s ticket, when I finally get it.  Much clearer.  Remember if you go.)

For 40,000 dong ($1.75) - including entry to the annex nearby (that second building) - I have more artifacts than I have time.  I had two hours before my Great March; now I have only one left.  This magnificent colonial building used to be the French School of the Far East.  The ground floor is prehistory; upstairs is more recent.  And as it’s Sunday, there are families there with their children, which makes it fun.

       One family is explaining to their children what those strange-looking dummies are:  the ages of evolution - Australopithecus, homo habilis, neanderthal, cro-magnon and homo sapiens sapiens.  But the children seem more curious about the strange pale woman in jeans with a camera:  me.
       Upstairs a group of elementary school age children is supposedly listening to the explanations of a docent.  I say supposedly because one boy, undoubtedly tipped off by my decidedly non-Asian appearance, mouths a silent English “hello” to me and I answer in kind.
       Display case after display case, I get a glimpse of Vietnam’s history.  Prehistoric vestiges are pretty much the same everywhere around the world, on the surface.  The bone and ivory jewelry from 500 BCE has its own unique style though.  Some of the figurines from the Red River Valley have different animals, perhaps; they’re pre-Dong Son, which means pre-Bronze Age.  But there’s a wood-cut stamp that looks a bit like a four-leaf clover that’s interesting because it was used to make a form of decorative “tattoo” on the skin way back in 2,000-1,500 BCE.  The funniest object comes from that same era:  a stone carving from the Dong Noi cave (near Laos) that looks like Mickey Mouse!

        From the 2nd and 3rd century there’s an amalgam of coins “melted” into a clay pot, turning it into a free-flowing object, and an oil lamp shaped like a chicken, plus a model of a fortress taken from a Han-era tomb.  Yes, Han.  Along with France, China also colonized Vietnam, and not for a hundred years but for one thousand (111 BCE-980 A.D.)  Among the other treasures, there’s a 10th century terra cotta mandarin duck, 17th-18th c bronzes and a model boat, phoenix heads and lions from the 12th century, plus a jewel-encrusted gold crown/hat from a Nguyen Dynasty emperor who ruled sometime in the 19th century.  So many, many lovely objects.
       But I have a room to free up.  And time is tight.  When I exit the museum, I’m a bit lost (see above).  A rickshaw-pedaler shouts at me from across the street.  I’m about a half-hour’s walk from the hotel, but why not.  I’ll take my life in my hands crossing the streets anyway, so why not have this experience as well?  This old man is old enough to have known the French as a boy, and he does speak French, calling me Madame when he points and says “The Opera House.  Paris” as we pass.
       Given the week-end’s pedestrian streets, he drops me off at the top of the lake and I walk back to the hotel in time for a quick shower and a slap-dash packing.  (It’s only a two-hour flight to Siem Reap, Cambodia.)  I enjoy a long talk with Rosie, my guardian angel, and give her my card to stay in touch.  Then a final nem/white wine lunch on the rooftop terrace, where by now I'm on very friendly terms with the barman, and the taxi is there.

       Given that my college years date from the Vietnam War era and that some of my friends were sent there but even fewer came back, it's strange that, of all the places I've visited so far, I feel the most free to strike out on my own in Hanoi.

High school class taking graduation photos on Opera House steps

Not much to say about the flight.  Just under two hours but Vietnam Air managed to serve us a light meal.  Customs leaving the country is every bit as icy cold as at arrival but a bit quicker... just stamped my visa “used”, no in-depth inspection of the info page on my passport or feeling of the paper it’s printed on.  Cambodian immigration isn’t much nicer, but more efficient; Americans buy a visa upon arrival and it’s a chain process.  One guy takes your passport and inspects it, passes it to Guy Two who asks for $30 - cash only, in U.S. dollars (no receipt) - passes it to Guy Three (all guys) who stamps the visa (good for one month) and staples it into your passport, then passes it to Guy Four who’s gathered up all the passports from all the lines and passes them to Guy Five who calls out your name.  Then it’s immigration.  By then my suitcase is wondering what happened to me!
       As probably did the greeter from the hotel, whom I am very glad to see.  He escorts me out to his tuk-tuk (motorized rickshaw) and off we go.  The breeze is refreshing because it’s 8 pm and it’s still 28°C (82°F) outside with a humidity of about 248%.  As it’s dark, it’s hard to get an idea of the surroundings, but they’re resolutely green, and I hear crickets for the first time since home in the States.  After 20 minutes on a path running parallel to the car street, a kind of glorified bike lane, we arrive at the hotel.  Bella, my Khmer Rosie, arranges a guided tour for tomorrow, shows me to my room and leaves me to sleep.

Cambodia

Day 32 - Saturday, Nov. 16 - Hanoi

The traditional ao dai dress

Not knowing when the shops open, I allow myself a late start.  The market street is just up past the lake.  And on the week-end the road around the lake is pedestrian!  Of course that just means cars that would have driven up it are merely diverted elsewhere, so you have double the risk of being run down by a car/bike/motorbike/motorcycle/truck/bus/rickshaw on those streets!  (The hotel clerk tells me the government is banning all motorbikes in a few years because of pollution.  Every Vietnamese has one, he tells me, and as they can’t afford a car, they’ll have to get around by bike or bus.)  Not sure this will ever actually happen though.

Dong Xuan Market

       When I get to the market area, the shops all sell more or less the same thing, as far as I can see, and they appear to be grouped by object sold.  A surprising number of shops sell only belt buckles!  Another that does just stationery is off Hang Ma Street, which is dedicated to selling things to make paper offerings to your ancestors...  And what a surprise that is:  paper and textiles, of course, of all sizes and colors, as well as feathers, pompoms, sequins, glitter...  The other streets also specialize:  an entire street each for medicines, shoes, sewing goods, toy trains, sugar (!), noodles!!
       The big market - Dong Xuan - is the same:  divided into specialties.  Built by the French in 1902, the three-story building burned down in 1994 but has been rebuilt with the same façade.  The aisles are super narrow; with shoppers stopping to look, it’s hard to get by.  China was jostling; here it’s more of an immovable opposition that you have to go around somehow.  (Is that how they won the wars?)  The only open space is a fountain in the middle.
       I enjoyed the walk, dangerous though it was, traffic-wise, and felt proud to not only get back to the hotel alive but to have gotten the knack of crossing when vehicles don’t respect niceties like red lights and one-ways.  It’s really just like Paris, taken to the nth degree.  And it was great to see how alike children are everywhere, running after bubbles, learning to walk.  And fun to see how much goods you can load on a motorbike!

Fine Arts Museum

The Vietnamese may feel it’s chilly but I’m sweltering.  So a change of clothes later, I’m off to the Fine Arts Museum.  If I had realized it was so close to the Temple of Knowledge (almost kitty-corner from it), I’d have visited it yesterday.  The hotel clerk calls a taxi; this must be the driver’s first time behind the wheel.  He inches down the street, eliciting honks from those behind him.  But he does get me there.

        The museum is housed in an ex-girl’s school from the French colonial days:  Joan of Ark Boarding School, where nice European girls in Indochina took lessons from the nuns.  It’s easy to imagine them, given the configuration of the museum:  three floors of (class)rooms off of a hall.  The objects range from small animal sculptures from Phu Tho province inland dating from 1,000 BCE and a frieze from 600 BCE, to a 7th-8th century sandstone Champa elephant from Quang Nam (just south of Danang), and running right up to contemporary works.  Some of the Vietnamese artists seem to have been inspired by Kandinsky and Picasso, with a very Modigliani-like sculpture of a woman from 1967.  Room 11 is all about Vietnam’s war with France and then with the United States.  There’s another room for rubbings taken from pagodas, one for woodcuttings, and two for paintings on silk.  And I get to see the original landscape of its copy that hangs in the hotel’s dining room.
       There’s a smaller building - the Annex - that includes displays of ao dais, the Vietnamese women’s dress/pants ensemble, and other objects I might also have seen in the Museum of Ethnography if it weren’t so far away.  The collection here includes clothing from the various regions, musical instruments, jars and dishes, jewelry and jewelry boxes, tiny ceramic figurines, basketry, masks and even two models of rural houses on stilts.
       In my whole two hours there, I see less than a dozen other people.  It’s lunchtime, but still... at 40,000 dong ($1.75) a head, it’s not paying for itself.

No taxis in sight, so I set out walking, map in hand.  Between the heavy traffic and the unruly motorbikes driving on sidewalks already taken up with shop displays and mom-and-pop sitting out in front.  Sometimes - often - you have to step into the gutter to get around them, but make sure you check before you do.  The neighborhoods change a bit in cleanliness and order, but China this is not!  One neighborhood is for mechanical repairs and I pass men crouching or sitting on ultra-low stools, lower than those for kindergarten.  But there’s a reason:  that way they can use their knees for a workbench.  At several places I see men making neon signs.

Water Puppet musicians

       In front of the Hanoi Digestive Center clinic, I see people crouched around street vendors, eating.  And at one shop I see a black T-shirt with the Vietnamese flag in vivid colors and below it:  “Good morning Vietnam!”  I stop and laugh, hearing Robin Williams’ voice in my head.  The shopkeeper gets up off his chair and asks if I want it.  “How much?” I ask.  He tells me, and I hesitate because it’s visibly too large for me.  He must think I feel that’s too expensive, so he brings the price down.  Now I have to buy it!  I’ll give it to my tall son.
       After 45 minutes, map still in hand, I’m back at the lake.  And it’s early so I go to the Water Puppet Theater.  The  reservations the hotel made for me are for the 4:10 show but I get in line to exchange them for the earlier 3 o’clock one.  The door guard pulls me out of the line - why, I don't know - and takes me around the side to another window where there’s no line and I choose an aisle seat.  The lights go down, the music and singing starts and the puppets appear, their “handlers” invisible behind curtains (or under the water?).  I have no idea what the story is, but it involves fishermen, fish, a pesky cat, a tortoise and an emperor.  It might be the legend of the magic sword, but whatever the plot, the few children among the tourists love it.  I have no idea how the puppeteers do their job in the water!  They get a big round of applause when they step out, er, wade out from behind the bamboo screen at the end.

Water Puppets

Back to the hotel to shower off the dust of the streets and rest my weary feet.  Then, again, shrimp-and-pork nems with a glass of sauvignon blanc on the rooftop overlooking the lake.  It’s quieter tonight because the street around the lake is still pedestrian.  Of course, there is the music show at the far end that, on a sound level scale of 1 to 10 is a 25, but...
       As I listen to this Western music blaring out over free Vietnam’s capital, I can’t help but wonder if this is what Uncle Ho had in mind when he drove out the French and then the Americans.  And if he were sitting next to me tonight, listening, would he be all right with it, or in tears?
       Later, I’m off, by cab, to Minh’s Jazz Club. Minh is a saxophonist.  His club’s address is Number 1 on the main street that runs from the lake to the Red River, so it should be simple to find, but in fact it’s hidden down a narrow side street off that main street and behind the Opera House.  A small space with mismatched tables and chairs - room for maybe 60 people.  Unfortunately, Minh isn’t playing tonight.  There’s a quartet - or rather a trio of guitar/bass/drums plus a saxophonist - all young musicians.  Not the soulfulness I thought I’d get from an older musician, but musically good.  The audience is more than half Vietnamese, the other half probably tourists.  Few are over 30.  An employee sees me at the bar; she motions to me and seats me at a table with a group of young Vietnamese who welcome me with an inquisitive smile.  An aging white woman here by herself at night is a curiosity to them, I guess.  As I listen and watch the guitarist rock back and forth in his sweatshirt and Hush Puppies, again I can’t help but wonder whether this is what Uncle Ho was fighting to offer his country.  But I enjoy every moment of it... and leave at the end of “In a Sentimental Mood” in the second set.
       No way to find a taxi but I’m starting to know my way around, and it’s a straight 20-minute shot down Trang Tien Street, past the Opera House, to the lake and my hotel bed.  My last night in Hanoi.

Day 31 - Friday, Nov. 15 - Hanoi

Hoan Kiem Lake and Tortoise Tower

A busy day ahead.  There's much to see in Hanoi.  And I have only 2½ days to see it all.

       With the help of Rosie aka Kha Han (meaning happiness), I’ve got lots of information as to what’s where.  First, a short walk to see the old French cathedral, St. Joseph’s.  On the road leading to it, I pass a café called simply “The Church”, and a fast food called “Take Eat Easy”.  Right after that a Buddhist temple, Chua Ba Da, hidden down an alley and holding a service to a full house.   

       Just down the street, another religion:  Roman Catholicism.  St. Joseph’s quaintly has a welcome mat at its entrance.  Inside, more tourists than parishioners.  I sit down in the pew and a feeling of A World Disappeared sweeps over me.  The stained glass inscriptions are in French:  l’ange gardien - the guardian angel - but the French are long gone.  I hear children playing next door beyond one open door (it’s a school) and motorcycles and cars honking beyond the other.
       In one side chapel are gilded brass panels.  A Vietnamese woman tries to pray as her little girl watches the tourists watch them and take pictures.  In another chapel, a plaque in the floor, the tomb of Giuse Maria Tinh Van Can.  Was he one of the Vietnamese martyrs this chapel is dedicated to?  There were 140,000-300,000 of them.  Their torturers “hacked off limbs joint by joint, tore flesh with red hot tongs”.  For some reason, stories of this reached Ste. Thérèse of Lisieux in France and she was to be sent to Hanoi.  But she contracted tuberculosis and died first.  A little link with a history I thought I knew.

       Back outside, I turn my back to the leprous walls that so need to be renovated, but that world is no more.  Unless the Vatican steps in, the tropical climate will ultimately have its way with St. Joseph’s.  I head off past other remnants of the French colonial era, mixed in with tiny, sad shops and decaying sidewalks.  I pass a lovely garden in front of what was once an embassy (name noted and research done once I get back home).  I pass a school where children are practicing a song for some event or visit.  I pass birds singing in cages hung just outside shop doors.  I pass a deformed man with wasted legs selling pop-up paper cards.  “Where are you from?” he calls to me, in English.  I reply “Paris”, in case Agent Orange caused his deformity.  He’s that age.
       Finally, I reach the “jade green” waters of Hoan Kiem Lake, the lake of the returned sword.  Legend says the Vietnamese emperor was given a sword to help him fend off the Ming Chinese invaders, a sword pulled up in a net by a fisherman in this lake.  After the Mings were defeated, the emperor was sailing in a boat on this lake.  A turtle rose up out of the waters and asked the emperor for the sword back, which the emperor did.  And it disappeared back into the lake.  At the south end, on a tiny island is the Tortoise Tower.
       There are no more turtles... at least none that have been seen.  One died in 1968, the other - the last - died recently, in 2016.  No more tortoises, but maybe still a sword?  If you want to see what this turtle looked like, the mummified remains of the last two can be seen in the 15th century Ngoc Son Temple (Jade Mountain Temple) further up the lake on Jade Island.  The temple itself is for taoism and confucianism; no Buddhas here.  Entrance price?  30,000 dong ($1.50) will buy you passage over the Japanese-style red wooden bridge and entrance to the temple.

Jade Mountain Temple

Temple of Knowledge

At the head of the lake I buy a ticket for the HoHo Tour Bus (hop-on/hop-off, not a Santa laugh, or a reference to Ho Chi Minh).  Pollution will be bad here today - my eyes water as I await the bus, and I cough - which is why so many people are wearing masks, some very colorful on the stylish ladies.  My ticket is valid for four hours, but I have to wait... and wait... and wait.  When it finally comes, I pick a seat in the front, for better visibility.  The lady “guide” gives me earphones for the audio, then helps me with them.  Her seat is across from mine.  We head off, past St. Joseph’s Cathedral, past Ho Chi Minh’s tomb, past West Lake (Truc Bach), which the audioguide tells me John McCain parachuted into when his plane was shot down on a bombing mission over Hanoi (with a monument to his capture there now).  Unfortunately, the audio is useless for more than some details because it keeps skipping ahead to keep up with the bus.
       We reach the Temple of Knowledge, and I get off.  This is one of Hanoi’s highlights, and for another mere 30,000 dong.  Lying just west of the city center, it’s another haven of peace amidst motorized bedlam all around.  And their audioguide is much better than the HoHo one; it gives a full history of the complex where Confucianism was taught as of 1070.  This first university of Vietnam is a series of five courtyards.  In the third one, a line of stone turtles, one for each winner of the mandarin’s exam under the Li Dynasty.  In another building is a statue of a crane on the back of a turtle (him again!), which represents duality:  heaven and earth, dry and wet...   Another feature is the 700-kilogram (1,543-pound) wooden drum, constructed from fifty 300-year-old jackfruit trees and called the thunder drum for the sound it makes.  The last detail that strikes me I discover when looking down from the innermost building’s second floor:  the tiled roof below is littered with coins and paper money!  A Hanoi version of Rome’s Trevi Fountain?  What were those people wishing for?

Opera House

       I’ve spent a whole hour here, and more, fascinated by the archaeology and history, and distracted by the numerous photo shoots (fashion?  marriages?  senior-year photos?).  When the HoHo Bus comes, guess who’s in it!  The same bus lady.  We recognize each other, and as there are almost no passengers besides me, we talk.  (Her English is excellent.)  When we reach the stop near the Opera, she points me in the right direction; this is the old French Quarter and, typical of French planning, there are roads radiating out in all directions, like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.
       Unfortunately, there are no visits of the interior of the Opera House unless you attend a show.  When the lady shows me a flyer, the show - “My Village” - turns out to be a kind of circus-y event including people walking on tall bamboo poles... in their bare feet!  I may have to see that!
       On to the nearby - but, for me, hard to find - Hôtel Métropole, my destination for tea time.  (I’ve skipped lunch.)  This is a legendary place built in 1911 during the French colonial era.  Among its famous guests, Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham and Charlie Chaplin, for whom a pastry has been named.  I pick a table in the conservatory and sink my weariness into a chair.  The waiter brings me an Assam tea, served in bone china and perfectly steeped.  He allows me to graze the pastry tray and I choose three miniature cakes plus a piece of chocolate.  Perfection!  A magic moment reminiscent of colonial days, minus the war.
       All that’s left to do is walk back to the lake and beyond, to my Apricot Hotel.  After a shower, a dinner of shrimp and pork nem (spring rolls) on the rooftop terrace, with a glass of chilled white wine, and then some reading until my eyes are as tired as my legs.

Day 30 - Thursday, Nov. 14 - Ha Long Bay

The dragon's teeth that make up Ha Long Bay

I had to turn my watch back an hour last night.  All of China may have just one time zone, but I’ve headed west and gotten an hour back.
       I used that hour to sleep.  And I must have needed it greatly even if I didn’t do much yesterday except ten hours in transit for a three-hour flight.  I realize, when I get out my door, that I was just blindly following the bellboy to a room and have no idea where the elevator is.  I do remember that breakfast is on the second floor and my room card says I’m on the fourth; that’s a start.
       What isn’t lost on me is the irony of awaking in a king-sized bed, in a five-star hotel, in a country with which my country was once in a deadly - and needless - war!
       At a copious breakfast - a blend of East and West - I see the Australian from last night now seated with his brothers, who finally arrived.  Then it’s pick-up time for Ha Long Bay... in a drizzle.  What happened to last night’s forecast for sun?

Bo Hon Island - the aptly named Surprising Cave

The trip is an hour and a half at high speed on a modern, three-lane highway.  Tony aka Kian, my guide, tells me it was built to speed container-ship semis from the port city of Haiphong on the ocean to Hanoi.  But there’s a toll (shades of China) of $80, so semis never use it!
       We arrive in Ha Long, but not the town.  The tourism boats now sail from a man-made island created from landfill, the tops of mountains dumped here.  Aside from the marina, the whole island is full of completed and semi-completed apartment buildings.  No school, no hospital, no stores, only a few snack bars and mom-and-pop shops.  Completely built for tourists.  Of which there are precious few.  (At least ones staying here; they all day-trip out from Hanoi.)  Even the complex’s magnificent white, manor-like reception building is empty, as seen through its picture windows.  So much for Paradise Bay, created by a businessman with government connections.
       Kian hands me off to “Jackie” (Chan, he quips) and I board the boat for a four-hour tour of the bay.  Only five other people on this boat, instead of its capacity of 35.  Good!  There’s Roz from Winnipeg who winters in Kona, Hawaii, two ladies from Japan, a Swiss diplomat and his Filipino wife, plus me.  Truly an international bunch.

Ha long literally means “descending dragon”.   Long ago, the Vietnamese prayed to the Mother Dragon to help defeat some fierce invaders  She and her children came down and destroyed the enemy.  Then giant emeralds (the islands) appeared along the bay; they are said to be the teeth of the Mother Dragon and her children, who left them behind to create an impossible-to-penetrate barrier meant to discourage any future invasion.  

Hen-and-Rooster Island

Incense Burner Island

     The boat slows down for photo ops at Incense Burner Island, named for its shape, and then at Hen-and-Rooster Island, two rocks facing each other.  While we’re taking photos and nursing our welcome drink, the chef has been busy in the kitchen.  We start our lunch with a creamy chicken and mushroom soup, followed by shrimp and salad, then three mini shrimp spring rolls and a cute little crab cake served with a small crab shell for a top.  (They raise shrimp on farms in this region; we passed them on the drive in.)  The main course (because all that was just the starters!) is roasted chicken and sea bass à l’orange served with broccoli, carrots and rice (which is also grown locally, with the last harvest of the year in late September).  Many of us are full and escape to the open upper deck for a better view, but a plate of orange slices, jackfruit and dessert cake finds us up there.  I learn that “thank you” in Vietnamese is gah mun; no more shay shay.  China’s over.

        To work off the calories, we dock at Bo Hon Island for a visit of Surprising Cave.  Created 50 million years ago, it’s 11,000 square miles of cave inside this karst island.  It was discovered by a Frenchman, but “development work” to make it visitable began only in 1989 and it opened to the public in 1994.  Five years of labor to create a safe stone-paved path through all the wonders.  We move from a small grotto to a medium-sized one, and then to a gigantic one, all with stalagmites and stalactites.  210 steps up to the entrance, many ups and downs inside, then 210 more steps down.  Perhaps they should create a zipline from the exit right down to the docks!

        After cruising a bit and sailing through an isthmus, we reach an island where we have to transit to a smaller boat - or a kayak for the more athletically inclined - in order to navigate through low-ceilinged Luon Cave and into a caldera-like “lake” where golden monkeys roam free, fed by people.  I see adults eating bananas and venturing down to see if we have anything for them.  And adorable babies play-fighting with each other.

       Then it’s back toward the marina, but slowly, marveling at all the islands, including one Uncle Ho (Chi Minh) showed to visiting Russian Cosmonaut Titov, so it’s named after him.  With a pagoda-like house-lette on the top.  But it’s late; we don’t stop to climb the many, many steps to the top.

       One more activity - this one on-board.  A cooking lesson.  The chef comes out of the kitchen with batter made of mixed-up sea bass, octopus and rice flour, plus a touch of dill, to be cooked in a frying pan on a hot plate.  He shows us how to shape the fritters and we all have a go.  Shades of making rice cakes for the pandas.  Once sauteed golden, he serves them up on a plate he’s decorated with huge artistically-carved carrots and bookended between two intricate cucumber sculptures.  Delicious!

Back at the marina, Kian is waiting.  We leave behind these 1,969 islands covering 1,553 square kilometers - a tourist destination since 1993.  The same karst geology as the Li Valley in China, only deeper, floating in the waters.

       Kian is quite talkative driving back to Hanoi, as he was on the drive out this morning.  He’s in his 30's or very early 40’s, lost uncles in the war with America, yet is extremely outspoken against this country’s party line.  As with the young Chinese guides, who never knew the hard years Stanley talked about, Kian makes a poor Communist-Socialist.  If all the young people feel as he does, I think Communism-Socialism will give way to a “me generation”, as capitalism has.

       A quiet evening with a Mojito (!) on the rooftop bar, looking out over the lake and the traffic while concert music blares from somewhere below.  I’ve spent lots of time with Rosie planning tomorrow’s visit of Hanoi on my own.  Time to rest up.

Hanoi by night