A Weekend in Hanoi

 Me, Simon and Ula took a trip to Hanoi last weekend and had a good laugh wandering round the back streets in the Old Quarter and stuffing our faces with great food.
We got the (free!) bus up there after school on Friday with some of our students who have friends and family there and so go back most weekends.
We stayed in the bustling Old Quarter at a little place called the Royal Family Hotel (£35 for two nights, double ensuite room and very cute breakfast included - see pic!).
Ula lived there for 8 months before taking the job in Do Son, so she was our tour guide for the weekend and showed us all the groovy places to visit. The traffic is absolutely mental (no rules WHATSOEVER) but after a while you get used to mopeds weaving around you and get quite good at jumping onto the pavement when necessary :-)
 On the Saturday night we met up with Ula's friend, Bron (an Aussie), at an Indian restaurant called Food 65 which looked out onto the lake. We ordered a curry each, naan bread, a bowl of rice each, 6 glasses of red wine and two mango lassies and the whole lot came to about £30. Bargain! I was quite surprised at how cheap everything still was considering we were in the capital city. You don't feel like you're constantly getting ripped off because you're a 'tourist', unlike in other places.










Hoan Kiem Lake