It is lightly raining as we leave our hotel in Hanoi for Duang Lan Village. For one hour we drive through the traffic of Hanoi and it’s suburbs before we see our first farmer’s field. The additional 30 minutes of driving to reach the village gives the skies time to clear our the rain.

​The people in this ancient village mostly grow rice, and we are greeted by the scene of a man and his wife planting one of their rice paddies. All the bending and hard work would cause me to be grumpy, but the couple seems to delight in teasing with our tour guide and with us. The village charges an admission fee, and if I hadn’t seen other farmers along the drive using the same techniques I would have thought they were putting on a bit of a show.
 
We walk through the narrow streets of the village and notice all the children. Kim explains that they are not in school because the government has decided to close schools for two weeks as a precaution against the Coronavirus.

Kim takes us into one of the houses and an older woman greets us. Jim sits down when she offers tea and sweets, and soon we have all joined in. Like most villages and cities Duang Lan has a pagoda and a temple. We visit both. Then we walk to an old home that has been converted into a restaurant catering to the tour groups. The food is brought out and served family style and there is a small bottle of local rice wine at each table. I understand why the cups are so small - this stuff is like fire water! We drive back to Hanoi, arriving in late afternoon.
 
In the evening we walk in the rain to the famous bar and restaurant area of Hanoi (which our guide calls bar street), popping into the Cyclo Bar for a beverage. While there the rain lets up. Yeah! For dinner we find a French restaurant and chat a little with the owner while awaiting our food. He speaks with a French accent and tells us he has been here for 13 years.
 
We meander back toward our hotel walking by Hoàn Kiém Lake. In the middle is Tháp Rùa, or Turtle Tower. Continuing along we stop at a cafe on the edge of the lake for coffee and a piece of cake.
 
A wonderful day and evening!

We meet our tour guide Kim in the lobby of our hotel at 8 am. We start the day for a walk through the Old Quarter, were our hotel is located. One of our first stops is St. Joseph Cathedral. From there we continue walking. The street scene is fascinating. Lots of people sitting on small plastic stools having their meal from a street vendor or small restaurant. A few of them specialize in dog, which Kim tells us are farm-raised. Somehow that doesn’t make it sound any more appealing to any of us.

We walk through the food area - there are vegetables, fruits, seafood and meat on display. So different from our shrink-wrapped supermarket foods!

​After a couple of hours of walking we go to the area where a train runs through the middle of a community - much like a street. We arrive just in time for a train, then walk along the narrow walkways between the tracks and the buildings. Women are cleaning chickens out in front of their homes. Most of the shops along the track are closed because it is Sunday morning, so we stop nearby for a coffee and to watch what appears to us to be the traffic chaos. It’s a Sunday so the traffic is not as intense, but it still feels overwhelming. So many motor bikes, some driving the wrong way on one-way streets! Yet, we really do not see any accidents even when there are five-way intersections.
 
Around noon a van picks us up and takes us to Indochine Restaurant for lunch. The menu includes soup, salad, appetizer, then pork, chicken, shrimp, eggplant and rice followed by fruit for dessert. We are stuffed!

Following lunch the van takes us to the Temple of Literature, the first Vietnamese university. Kim explains the significant buildings and monuments. It is graduation day and fun to see the young people dressed for the occasion and having photos taken.

​Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum is next. We learn about some of the history of Vietnam, Ho Chi Mihn’s life and that he wished to be cremated when he died, but that the leaders of Vietnam instead wanted him entombed here. We walk by the small buildings where he lived.

Close by is the One Pillar Pagoda, which was originally constructed in 1049 by Emperor Lý Thái Tông in gratitude for the birth of his son. In 1954 the French destroyed the pagoda as they were withdrawing during the Indochine war so the one we visit is a rebuilt version. Tran Quoc Pagoda on West Lake is a 15 - 20 minute drive away. It is the oldest Buddhist temple in Hanoi, dating back to the Sixth Century.

​It’s approaching 5pm when we hop into cyclo’s - bicycle taxi’s - for a 30 minute ride around the Old Quarter to the Water Puppet Show. This is one of the more unique forms of theater I have seen. There are puppets controlled through pipes underneath a 2 meter pool of water. Live musicians sing and play instruments to tell the stories as the puppets are manipulated by people behind the curtain. It’s something to say that we’ve done once, but this is Dan’s second experience. Lol.
 
Dinner tonight has been arranged the Home Restaurant. It’s an upscale venue with a set-course menu. The meal is good, but we all agree that our Indochine experience was better.
 
Our driver and Kim, our guide, deliver us back to the hotel a little after 8 pm. It has been a very long day.

We have arranged for a taxi to take us to the airport on this sunny Saturday. We will be starting our 16 day tour of Vietnam with family and friends and we are very much looking forward to the trip. As the taxi driver drops us at the airport she reminds us to wear our masks - everyone is concerned about the Coronavirus and masks are ubiquitous (and expected) in the airport. We’ve read about the pro’s and con’s of the masks but to avoid bringing attention to ourselves we put them on.

Our flight from Chiang Mai to Hanoi on Thai Asia Airways is okay. They are a discount airline where you must pay even for water. But the 1 hour 30 minute flight is on time and the flight attendants are pleasant. It meets our needs.

Once arriving in Hanoi we must obtain our Vietnamese visa. We take a left once we have walked to Immigration, quickly heading to the line for visas. After we queue for a bit I figure out that most of the time the man at the counter is pointing to a stack of forms and telling people to fill one out and come back. We grab the forms, fill them out, bundle them with our passports, the Invitation Letters that the tour company provided and the two passport photos we have brought along. The man at the counter wearing a military uniform accepts the bundles and tells us to wait in the next queue. About thirty minutes later William’s name pops up upon the display. We go to the second counter to learn that both visas are ready, pay $50 US cash each for a multi-entry 30 day visa and are able to go through immigration. The process is annoying, but not horrendous.

We pick up our bags, get the maximum 2,000,000 Dong (yes, two million, about $85 US) from an ATM and go out to meet our driver. No one is waiting with a sign displaying our names within the building, so after 10 minutes we walk outside. There he is - the man with our sign! A 40 minute drive into the city, we arrive at the Silk Path Boutique Hotel. The room is nice and the bed seems to be a bit softer than the one in our previous abode (but then, we don’t think it could be any harder).

​We meet up with our traveling companions and walk past St. Joseph Cathedral to dinner at a restaurant recommended by the hotel staff. The restaurant is owned by TopChef Thailand. My duck is exceptional and William’s steak is very good. During dinner we chat about our flights, our families and our upcoming adventures. A very pleasant evening.