VISITS

Pictures of my day trip to Hanoi, North Vietnam. A couple of top tips first from uncle Jocky,  Top Tip 1.. change your money up before you go, as unlike Nanning in SW China, where the banks are open 7 days a week, in Hanoi they are closed at weekends, we managed to change up, at the post office, 600RMB,  thats about 60 pounds, and we got 1.2 million Vietnamese Dong, so we were millionares for the day. Top Tip 2..make sure you take the address of the hotel, as unlike our cheerful lovable london black cabbies who know where everything is, when we arrived at 04.45 in the raiway station, which was smaller than Catford, the taxi drivers did not know where the hotel was, just by the name of the hotel, and having to find another, which we did, by sheer luck a half mile walk away, that old saying, A stranger in a strange land comes to mind.

The first pics are of the military museum in Dien Bien Phu st, on every board the information and description, had,  Heroic so and so battalion mentioned  on it, but I did notice it was all about the attacks on the French and south Vietnamese, they only mentioned the Americans when you looked at the downed plane and all the bombs they dropped, I might be wrong here, but they lost all the battles to the Americans, and when the USA B52'd the North, back into the stoneage, they came to the negotiating table, and waited for the USA to leave before they attacked the South, not Cricket eh, old boy. Hang on, hang on...here's me defending the colonists, can't have that, anybody who throws pefectly good tea into a harbour, does not need my defence, I like tea .

One thing I did notice, the place is full of westeners, must be the exchange rate, and the love of mopeds, because its full of the bloody things, you cant move, even on the pavement they are parked up, even more than China.

The bottom set of pics are of myself at Ho Chi Mins, mausoleum, John Lennons statue,why would you have one of the beatles near a military museum, hang on....... its Lenins, that famous WW1 German spy, last one is me selling bananas, got to pay for the return train fare somehow. It was a grand day out, and all the people were friendly, although everyone who I spoke to asked me where I came from,  as soon as I mentioned Scotland, they all said Football, good job I did not say England, as after last years performance in the world cup, I would have caused an international incident, with all those Vietnamese having to go to hospital with their sides split open with laughter,  the last of the small pictures is of the main railway line into Hanoi, just look how close that shop is, pity its not Games Workshop.