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Other entries in Hanoi

The French Tattoo..........

Hoi An at 10pm at night.......moto's, cyclo's and ladies balancing two baskets either end of a rod of bamboo with pinapple and banna in abundance ........ no rain and loads of wonderful French architecture everywhere......the French Tattoo......they left their mark and how strangely beatiful it all is amongs the shabbiness of this city! The buildings all look worse for wear but civilized at the same time.

Didn't take us long to settle in once we found digs for our stay. We found a fab pub which is owned by a French Canadian (Danny) and managed by an English guy (Matt) who is a teacher at a charity school where they teach street children about economics and working in hotels as waiters and bar staff along with also teaching them the much needed english that they'll need in order to work in the tourism trade...which is a fast developing economy in this city....the staff at the pub are puplis at the school and once they reach a certain level of competency, they get the chance to work here to have first hand experience of dealing with menus, orders, bills and western people and from here, they are then put forward for positions in 'tourist' hotels (this is backpacker-ville remember...so they practice on us easy going 'travelling' folk before having to deal with the 'tourists')...Matt is so involved and engulfed in his charity work that even during his lunch breaks from teaching, he comes to the pub for lunch and gets the staff to go through more english scenarios with him that they might encounter during the shift hours....ie...if someone asks for 'ketchup', by what other name is 'ketchup' known...'tomatoe sauce'; if someone wants their egg 'well done'....what do they mean?.....that the yolk (the yellow) is hard....etc.....amazing dedication!

After a hearty dinner at the pub, Matt and Sebastian (Matts Canadian friend who is a TV producer) tells us about a pub just donw the road that we should try after the pubs closing time....sure, any recommendations for a good drinking-hole is well worth the look...and so last orders over and we make our way to check out this place that Matt recommended...only to find they are there before us...he's got a bike!! A few hours later and a few drinks and crisps down us we know we will definately be coming back here.

Up early the next morning to go to Ho Chi Mihns mosoleum but it was such so no visiting the old man. The day is spent sorting out what and where we all want to go from here....bearing in mind all our visa's expire on different dates so it's what is important to see what you can with the time each of us has...some going of to Ha Long Bay and some can't stay as their visa's about to expire in a day and some of us off to Sapa.....so off to train station to book tickets for Sapa and others to sort out their boat tickets for Ha Long Bay....all sorted, it's our last night as the group we know it and are off to try out a restuarant recommended to us....the Cyclone Restuarant....we could not believe the menue....it was cuisine like we'd not seen anywhere since leaving Europe...a lot of french influence...we went the whole hog and had everything we wanted including 3 bottle of wine, starters, main, desert, more starters and the bill worked out at just over 10 quid a head!!!!

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