I had lots of fun exploring the streets, I found some amazing shops selling the most fantastic wares, all at ridiculously low prices. The English pound (1 pound=20,000 Dong) goes a long way here! I think I must be getting old, I see some stuff and think "That'll look good in my house", but first, I need to buy my own house to put them in!. Vietnam would be a fantastic place to furnish a house. You can buy some amazing things for really good prices, the only problem would be shipping it all back. Of course, I had to do a bit of shopping, and I bought some great souvenirs.

I also met some very interesting people in the Kangaroo Cafe. This is a nice cafe owned by an Australian guy called Max. I was sitting on my own, enjoying a delicious Omelette, when a middle aged guy sat at my table. I chatted with him for a bit, and he turned out to be a very interesting guy. He's a photographer by trade, and he had recently had a collection of his photos on display in a gallery in Hanoi. He's a New Yorker, but he's been living in Vietnam for 7 months and he loves it here. Another guy also joined us, an Australian who'd been living in Vietnam for 2 years, teaching English. He also had some interesting stories to tell about earning a living in a Socialist country. Both guys had done huge amount of travelling (the photographer had been to over 50 countries), and some great stories to tell, and advice to share for my future travels. He also had a great idea that I might try one day, trying to walk along every section of the Great Wall of China...

Another thing I saw for the first time and I really liked, were the traditional Ao Dai worn by Vietnamese women. I think that this traditional costume (often worn to work and at formal occasions) is the most beautiful style of clothing I have ever seen. It's hard to describe unless you see it for yourself, but I would say the Ao Dai is: beautiful, stunning, elegant, feminine, classy, sensual, flowing and many other superlatives. I'll try and find a photo to but on the web site.

Later on I decided to grab dinner at the nearby Jazz Club, a really atmospheric little restaurant with some tasty (but expensive) food. I spent the evening watching a brilliant group of Vietnamese Jazz musicians jam into the night. It was quite funny being in this completely different country and hearing some Jazz pieces that I recognised. Later on some Irish girls who'd been on the coach from Vientiane with me, invited me over to their table, so I chatted with them for a while.

After a great evening, I headed back to the hotel & met Gilad (the Israeli guy) and Suzi (the Japanese guy) for the first time today. They'd both gone off and done their own things. Suzi had gone around doing magic tricks & juggling to impress the Vietnamese ladies!

Anyhow, after some chatting with the really friendly hotel owners, we decided to call it a night.

Wow, what a day! I'd come to Vietnam with low expectations, all the other travellers I'd met only had bad things to say about Vietnam, but I'm loving it here so far! I hope the rest of the country is as good as Hanoi so I can prove the other travellers wrong.

Night night!


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