The next day we flew into Hanoi for two days stay at the Hanoi (Opera House) Hilton. Cliff had a bunch of Hilton Honors points to use and we found that many hotels in Asia have low point thresholds and great service. The lobby was quite nice:
Because of Cliff's status, we stayed on the Executive floor which had its own lounge which featured complimentary breakfast, tea time, cocktail hour and 24 hr snacks and beverages. It was heavenly. 
Our first tourist stop in Hanoi was the other Hanoi Hilton. The prison was originally built by the French to jail "patriots" as the were called in the many displays. Then it was used as a jail and torture center for liberals from the south and lastly, used for American POWs.
The first set of rooms showed the horrors of communal jail life...most prisoners were kept in these common shakles for days on end. 
One room was dedicated to a purely french import, the Guillitine. The room was lined with pictures of beheadings carried out by the French and the Northern Vietnamese. I think it said that the last time it was used was in the 1950's. Scary.
Of course, we were more interested in the Vietnam War relics. Below is Sen John McCain's flight suit. There were also black and white photos of him being dragged from the water by a bunch of peasants. It's sad to think that the most horrible moment of his life is not documented in a museum for the whole world to see.
Here is a pic of him visiting the museum in the 90's...he looks so happy to have his picture on the wall.
The museum also showed all sorts of pictures about how well the Vietnamese treated the Americans...they got to celebrate christmas, cook their own sumptuous meals, etc. Other pictures showed GIs playing basketball in the prison courtyeard and attending church. Of course, all of them had grim looks on their faces and would not look directly at the camera. I thought this was such blatent propoganda, but a french guy on the tour bus asked a question that reminded me of how easily people can buy into that stuff. (I have lots of other opinions about french people, but I'll save that for another post) The guy asked why the N Vietnamese treated the Americans so well--like letting them play volleyball and have thanksgiving turkey--but were so cruel and torturous to the french. Ah...ignorance is bliss.
The back courtyard was dwarfed by a massive sculpture wall of prisoners...i thought it was hauntingly beautiful...very gothic.
That afternoon we walked around the central market area. Unfortunately, I had to pee. I thought I'd give you all an intro to a vietnamese public toilet. It smelled worse than it looked and thank god I was wearing shorts. For those with poor balance or inexperience squatting, you do whatever karate-kid move you can to make sure you dont touch the walls with any part of your body, lest you have to immediately return to your hotel room to brillo said body part with antibacterial soap and hot water. China can be worse than this, so be prepared.
The rest of the market was filled with hundred of stalls that sold you anything a tourist or local could need. I was just amazed by the sheer number and variety of things this lady had available
Near the Center of the town is Hoien Than Lake...It wasn't incredibly impressive, but it was the most sunshine we would see in our entire time up north.
And of course, we had to get our typical tourist picture.
There were definately many distrubing things we saw in Hanoi. Probably the worst was a man carrying 5 whole degutter pigs (I would guess 150 lbs a piece) on his motorbike. The picture below ranks up there though. I'm not sure that I want to buy fish that has been gutted on the sidewalk. I definately sure that I do not one that has been cleaned streetside next to an overflowing trashcan. ugh.
Despite the last comment, we did try alot of food in Vietnam. truthfully, Vietnamese food was 'eh'. Cliff really didn't like it. He is a more picky eater than I am. We ordered by the grunt and point method and it turned out ok. Below is a fish with tomato and dill, pork patties wrapped in greens, green beans, caulflower and rice, soup, fried eggs and second helpings of the pork and green beans came later--all for about 8$ for three of us.
The second night in hanoi we tried a 'nice' restaurant. We had a couple of plates of spring rolls, eggplant with pork, shrimp with cashews and lots of coconut ice cream. Dinner came to about 30$, but it wasn't all that special.
The next day we strolled around the Air Defense Museum. For some reason it was closed, but out front is a petting zoo full of air defense artillery, helos and jets, so we were able to walk around the grounds, which was pretty fun.
The most interesting part of the whole display was the pile of shot down American weaponry in front of the museum. Yep, that's an F-4.
Inside the lobby there was a MiG-21 mock up...we all got a kick out of it.
After the Air Force Museum we visted the Fine Arts Museum...before I got yelled at for taking pictures I was able to catch a couple good shots. I think the statue below could be of any asia culture.
We also did some tasted testing with varied results...Aloe-Vera Juice:
Water Chestnut Juice:
Ginseng Root Juice:
We also wanted to visit Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum...we got a late start on the day, weren't quite sure where it was and had some issues with the cab driver fan to the closest big building. As we found out later it was HCM Museum...we spent the entire visit looking for a dead body.
The inside was another propoganda-arama. Tastefully done, but I definately felt like I was being psychologically force fed, again.
By the time we got done and realized our error we ran to HCM Mausoleum only to discover it was closed. This was the closest we got...oh well. It is somewhat similiar in concept to Mao ZeDong's Mausoleum, which I refuse to go to, so I probably didn't miss much.
I've been playing around with some of my camera settings, since Cliff has the nice camera now, so we spent some time walking around the Mausoleum to take some pictures.
And another shot of Danny...notice the pink on his lips from the dragonfruit.
After a rather dissapointing stay in Hanoi (weather was cold, food was just OK and the sites were pretty much communist propagandist). Our next stop was Halong Bay/Catba Island, which is a UNESCO world heritage site and some of the best rock climbing in SE Asia. We each brought a 10$ ticket which covered a bus, a bus, a hydrofoil boat and another bus to CatBa town. Altogether it took 4 hours. Below is the snack room as the bus station...I don't think it got any Michelin Stars.
Bus #1
Hydrofoil
And finally, to our hotel. We stayed on the ocean front (no beach) for 10$ a night. The bad part of this deal is that there was no heat in the hotel and it didn't get above 60 degrees during the day...it was very cold nights. The shower was scalding hot, so that partly made up for it.
Jan 26th marked Chinese New Year, which is called Tet in Vietnam. Our Vietnamese hostess invited us to join her families celebration, which was a really special event. As per tradition we walked around the town square with branches broken off of the local trees (I don't really get what that was about) and sang in Vietnamese.
Once we returned to the hotel we were treated to a special midnight meal to bring in the new year. Lots of beer and Vietnamese wine (which ranks below chinese wine in quality, but above chinese wine in regurgitation factor).
As I said before, the main reason we came to CatBa Town was for the rock climbing...so we rented motorbikes and made our way to Butterfly valley.
I did make some serious progress on this trip, including doing my first lead climbing. There is something sobering about taking your life in your own hands and despite the odds, I did it correctly.
I was so happy!!! The scenery was so nice--complete with friendly cows...
and cowpies.
Danny was a better climber than us, so Cliff and he usually alternated lead climbing a route while I top roped the route.
The view was nice from the top. I'm belaying Cliff while danny looks on.
Cliff also got some great dynamic moves on film.
Obviously he was also happy with his progress on this trip.
Overall, we like Vietnam, and will probablyr eturn later, after we hit a couple other places.
