We quickly realized the streets were going to be packed all day as Vietnam was celebrating its Independence Day today, but we had a great time walking among the thousands of happy and celebratory Vietnamese people throughout the day.
In the morning we first stopped at the beautiful Ngoc Som Temple, staring over the Hoan Kiem Lake, near our hotel. To get there, though, we had to get past a bike and motorcycle race going on at the circuit surrounding the lake. We also met a very friendly young student and took a survey about our time in the country.
Next, we walked through the Old Quarter past the St. Joseph Cathedral and to the Hoa Lo Prison (a.k.a. the Hanoi Hilton), which has now been turned into a museum.
At the Musuem, we went through a series of informative exhibits and appreciated the chance to learn more about the prison, its role in Vietnam's foundation, and take in its (skewed but valuable) perspective on American POWs.
After an hour in the surprisingly air conditioned museum, we went back out into the 113 degree heat index weather and trudged slowly but excitedly to the Temple of Literature - Vietnam's oldest university. We were not disappointed.
The Temple complex, which dates back to the 11th Century, was beautiful and remained in remarkable shape. We could understand how students could succeed in this serene environment which impressively kept out the noise and chaos from the hectic city around it.
When we left the Temple at around 12:30, we were both sweaty and pretty tired. I got a very tasty Banh Mi sandwich on the way back to our hotel for an a/c break. Then we went out and, unfortunately, had our first bad meal of the trip - some Pho soup with almost inedible, fatty "brisket" meat. (Also debatable was the decision to have hot soup on such a hot day, but the Vietnamese do it so go figure).
Undeterred, and after another brief Starbucks visit to cool off - we, again, regret nothing - we hired a tuk tuk driver for an hour to take us to the tall and picturesque Tran Quoc Pagoda on the other side of downtown. (By the end of the day we walked 13 miles so you can understand why the tuk tuk was a good idea in that heat!)
Powered by our beastly strong driver, we saw the Pagoda and then also the One Pillar Pagoda and Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum.
We then left our hero tuk tuk driver and headed back to our hotel a few miles away on foot (though we ended up pleasantly running into him two more times when we made it back to the Old Quarter in the late afternoon).
At 5:30, we went back down and circled the lake to try and meet up with Yuri and Ilana for rooftop sunset drinks at the Sofitel, but we all later realized that we were talking about two different rooftop lounges. We did not take this epic sunset picture (credit: Yuri), but we'll take credit at least for the effort to get there.
After getting back on wifi, the four or us finally met up for a fantastic dinner and great conversation at Red Bean in the Old Quarter. Yuri and Ilana fly back to Chicago tomorrow so we wished them safe travels back home before we headed back to our hotels. Tomorrow we are off to Hong Kong, our final full stop on this fortunate journey!
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