Vietnam!!!

Andy says some of these pictures need some explanation, but it took me hours just to get them up. Trying to read through the HTML to put captions under them is way too difficult so instead, I'm just going to sum it up. K? Our friend Preya grew up in Vietnam and gave us tons of stuff to do and we did it all! We went to see Ho Chi Mihn which was a very strange thing to do indeed. You just get in a long line and everyone walks through to look at his dead body. Very Haunted mansion at Disneyland mixed with guards carrying rifles with knives on the end.
Where you see us petting the turtles and rubbing money on statues is at the Temple of Literature. It is a 1000 year old college and served as one for 700 years! We were just copying everyone else and we rubbed each turtle's head and then our own. Even though everyone was doing this, the Vietnamese thought we were amusing. Oh, and we even got our picture taken because we are apparently freaks. How do you say Farang in Vietnamese? I think that the picture taking has more to do with Andy than me because this has also happened in Thailand when I was with my Welsh friend Cat. They like white people a lot and I just happened to be standing with White people each time a picture has been snapped from a stranger. Never have I been alone. I also will back this assumption up with the fact that Cat was handed a baby to hold for a picture and I wasn't requested to be a part of that. I think I am too dark to be of baby holding status. I don't feel bad, the baby wouldn't stop crying but they still made Cat hold her while they tried to make her smile for a picture. It was quite a chaotic scene and I was just happy to be a (too dark) bystander.
Back to Vietnam. There are lots of outdoor cafes in Vietnam and you can see we spent a fair amount of time in them. There is also 17 cent beer on the street that the backpackers gather around at night. That's exciting stuff. The lake in the middle of the old quarters used to be attached to the river and there is a temple/pagoda in the middle of it. The picture of the big turtle in a glass case is some story that I can't remember and I guess those crazy sized turtles are still thought to live in the lake. I don't know, look it up.
We went to the War Museum and saw pictures of John McCain. That was sad and creepy.
What else? We bought A LOT of stuff to hang around our house and ate Pho everyday...some times (usually) twice.
Vietnam is surprisingly loud. I thought Bangkok was the noise pollution capital of the world, but it is nothing compared to Vietnam. They honk just to honk...ALL THE TIME. We decided Hanoi was not a place we could live. Even though we liked it a lot and it is a really cool city, it is way too loud and closes down quite early. The first night we couldn't find our hotel because the whole city closed and when we finally found it the hotel looked completely different. It had a gate up with cars parked behind it so you couldn't even see the entrance. We had to wake up the workers who sleep on the couch in the lobby. We were sure to return early the next nights. When we had to leave for the airport at 7am we thought for sure the town would be bustling since everyone goes to bde by 9pm. Not so. Again, we had to wake up the hotel workers who sleep on the couch in the lobby so we could check out. Overall we had a blast and would like to see Halong Bay and Sapa on our next Vietnam trip. I think the county has a lot to offer and we just got a little piece. Everything is less expensive than Bangkok so that was nice too! We also thought the hats were quite festive. Enjoy the pictures! Oh, there were A LOT of brides running around the lake.