Today we have a free day. We planned to go for any early morning walk before breakfast, so 3 of us (excluding Joy) met in the foyer at 7 am to venture out in overcast weather with light rain. The hotel was most obliging, in equipping us with hotel umbrellas to keep us dry.
The streets are remarkably quieter at this time od day, except for those out getting their morning exercise. We saw a few groups of older people gather around some portable source of music, ballroom dancing in the rain, dressed in their motorbike helmets etc or whatever they arrived in. They seemed to be having a great time.
We walked back down to the lake and planned to walk right around it, which should only take about half an hour.
Mike by the Lake with the bridge to the Ngoc Son Temple in the background
It was pretty bleak out on the streets, so we did a lap of the lake and headed back to the hotel, for an excellent breakfast.
We wanted to see the Army Museum (Mike especially did), so we caught a cab from the hotel. It is only open till 11.30am today , so we hurried off just before 10.30am, to see as much as we could.
The museum if a mix of indoor and outdoor displays, chronicling Vietnams' major conflicts with France and the USA. Information in English is limited, but you can follow enough of what is there to make it interesting. There are extensive outdoor displays of Vietnamese and foreign aircraft, tanks etc that were used in the various conflicts.
The museum was awash with groups of school children touring the museum in large groups.
After refreshments we caught a cab to Hang Gai Street in the Old Quarter to find a place for lunch. We had our heart set on Pho (noodle soup), but it appears it is only served for breakfast and no-one would serve it for lunch, so we stumbled upon an upmarket looking restaurant opposite the lake with an outdoor cafe and a restaurant inside . They seemed very keen to seat us in the indoor area which was set up like a fine dining restaurant. It transpired we were the only people in the restaurant. We had a great meal, once we eliminated all of the items on the menu that were not available, and had their undivided attention for the whole time we were there. Language was a bit of a problem, but somehow it all worked out, and despite the fine surroundings the price was reasonable
Our lunch venue
We walked back to the hotel around the rest of the lake and along the way saw evidence that Vietnam is also building there own NBN and appears to be much further advanced in installing their infrastructure than we are and have also worked out how to do it at an affordable cost. No doubt there will be a study tour from Aus soon to check it out.
The hotel runs an historic tour of the hotel, including a tour of the bomb shelter which was built under the hotel during the Vietnam war (known here as the American War). We put ourselves down to attend the 5pm tour and found it very interesting.
It seems that our hotel, Raffles in Singapore and The Oriental in Bangkok are all over 100 years old and are all 5 star + , the only 3 hotels in Asia to meet these criteria. The Metropole was also host to a number of foreign embassies in the latter period of the war and beyond, whilst rebuilding took place. The room we are staying in was the Italian Embassy between 1975 and 1982. The guide had lived through the war as a child and still had vivid memories of bomb shelters being a way of life. The shelter at the hotel was sufficient to house 40 guests and was covered with 7 feet of concrete. Hotel staff had to rush home to their own shelters. At the height of the carpet bombing of Hanoi, guests were sometimes required to evacuate their rooms and go to the shelter up to 3 times in an evening.
There isn't a lot of headroom in the shelters.
Dinner tonight was a very good Vietnamese meal at the hotel restaurant, Spice Garden
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