• Category Archives vietnam
  • Hanoi

    Our hotel in Hanoi was nice. This was very clearly the bedroom having a king and a single all pushed together. Matt still managed to take up most of it.

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    Wandering around the city led up to the statue of Lenin.

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    We also went to a couple museums.

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    See some people also draw like little Matthew. They don’t need bodies, just a head and limbs.

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    On the way to the post office we passed this statue. For some reason one of the other Asian tourists wanted Matt in his picture.

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    The traffic is interesting to say the least. When crossing the street you just go. The bikes will generally go around you as long as you keep moving. If you stop they aren’t sure what you are doing and you might get hit.

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    The big lake near downtown had a temple and small island in it. There were also fish in the lake but you couldn’t really tell as the water was very cloudy.

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    The temple was very pretty though.

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    This was the main circle that we walked through most days on the way from the hotel to the lake area.

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    This is what most side streets look like. This is one of the wider streets though and there aren’t as many bikes parked on the street.

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    Matt was pretty much forced to eat a doughnut which wasn’t very good and she then proceeded to get us to buy more. Most of our exchanges with the locals were around the lake and were with students who were practicing their English.

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  • Cycling Cat Ba Island

    One of our included activities was cycling around Cat Ba island.

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    This was the flattest section. However it wasn’t like that for most of it and some of the hills were too steep for the 1 gear bike to handle. Especially when the seat was so low that we couldn’t pedal properly. There were a few parts of walking Cat Ba island. Still it was very beautiful and green.

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  • Amazing Cave

    If you can’t tell this is not just an amazing cave it was The Amazing Cave.

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    It was one of the stops during our cruise of Hanalong Bay.

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    The ceiling was very smooth because this used to be flooded and filled with water and the waves erroded the limestone into these patterns.

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    There were folded patterns of growth everywhere.

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    Some formations looked a bit strange.

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    There weren’t many long single ones, probably due to damage from visitors.

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    It did look like quite a few did grow at some point.

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    There were also some foolish residents who were less than thrilled to have all the tourists ruining their sleep.

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    We were amazed to see how they can hold onto what seems like a fairly flat surface.

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    This was really sparkly but the camera didn’t really pick it up that much.

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    There were some very large columns growing and overall it was a very good cave.

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  • Making Spring Rolls

    After sunset on the boat we had a quick cooking lesson to learn how to make spring rolls.

    First we took a plate covered in a damp towel and put the rice paper on it to soften it.

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    Then we added filling: steamed pork, shredded cabbage, shredded carrots, noodles, cucumber and lettuce.

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    Make sure not to overfill.

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    Then starting at the end with the filling, roll halfway, then tuck in the sides and roll the rest of the way.

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    The sauce is made of 3 parts water to 1 part fish sauce with lemon, sugar, garlic, chilli, carrot and pineapple.

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    This is the end result.

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