Spouse Meeting and City Tour of Hanoi

The day started off with a yummy breakfast and then I met up with Bill at the Spouse Meeting.  In the afternoon we went on the Jones city tour of Hanoi where we rode in a bicycle buggy type thing around the Old Quarter of town.  I took lots of pictures of the locals and all of the interesting things-- there are MANY!! One of our favorites is the way all of their electric wires and such are strung up!  There seems to be just a wad of them!  It's crazy that they are so tangled! There is also a picture below of a very skinny house... they are taxed by the width of the front of their house, so apparently to get around that expense, the people built it very narrow!  We laughed that a bed can probably barely fit in it! Then we walked around as our guide showed us the streets and some back alleys.  The streets are named for what is sold on those streets and it has been this way since a long time ago-- ie: silk street, fish street, jewelry street, etc.  Then we got in a big golf cart type car and saw things that way, as well.  We ended up at the Hoa Lo Prison where American soldiers were imprisoned in the Vietnam war.  (John McCain was a POW there, and is pictured below.) It was very interesting and started as a prison that the French built and used to imprison the Vietnamese people-- they were very brutal and horrible things were done to them-- they even used the guillotine!  They tried to make it sound like it was a great place for the American prisoners during the Vietnam war, and that they were treated so much better than the Vietnamese inmates  that were imprisoned there.  We didn't buy it, in fact it's a bunch of propaganda!  They showed pictures of the American soldiers decorating Christmas trees and playing chess, etc!  Hahaha!  We know that they were very brutal to these soldiers, and were probably only nice when the war was ending and peace agreements were being signed.  Our tour group laughed and under our breath all muttered "propaganda"!  The Vietnamese tour guide even talked about it, saying it wasn't represented correctly.  Now the Vietnamese all have access to Google and the internet, so they know the truth, even though the communist government still tries to sugar coat the story.  After the tour, we came back to the hotel and then walked back to the Old Quarter where our guide from today said there was a great restaurant.  Well, he was RIGHT!  It was located near the lake and it was on the 5th floor and we sat outside overlooking all the hustle and bustle of the traffic and people below!  We are still in awe of the traffic here and how there is no rhyme or reason, but that it just flows!  (And that no one gets hurt!)  The food was SO GOOD!!!  We ate the regional plate-- beef and green papaya and it had a kick to it but was so delicious!  I loved the lemon grass in it!  (They use that a lot!)  We ordered what we thought were onion rings, but it was fried squid (calamari), which I normally don't like, but this was really good.  We got grilled shitake mushrooms and a really good green salad and French fries.  We also ordered the frozen passion fruit drink and it was huge-- we each got one, and it was so refreshing on such a hot day!  After we enjoyed dinner and the view over the lake, we walked off dinner by going to Baskin Robbins-- a 20 minute walk away!  (We spotted it on the tour today!)  We saw lots of cool stuff while we walked.  Then from there we walked back to our hotel, stopping at an upper end shopping mall to look for charms, but no luck.  They don't get it when I try to explain what a charm is!  :)  (I'll just have to order something on Amazon for my charm bracelet when I get back.)  It was a really, really fun day!