Capital let us..

It was a chilly day to arrive and you couldn't expect it to improve. A taxi from the station to our hotel gave a slight impression of what to expect on the roads, and to be fair peoples warnings seemed somewhat excessive. A warm welcome at our hotel with free coffee on tap was appreciated, so dosed up on caffeine we headed out. The fumes are thick enough on some streets to almost chew on, thankfully a face mask does help somewhat. We went for a walk around Hoan Kiem lake - where the golden tortoise descended having claimed back the divine sword used by the then king to ward off the Chinese - before popping to the ticket office of Thang Long Water Puppet theatre and reserving our seats ready for the next evening. We set off into the backstreets of the Old Quarter to find some food and if it weren't for the street names being on almost all the shops it could have been quite a maze to navigate. Trying to find our way back to the lake we came across the 'village gate' a small site paying homage to the importance of a gate to locals as a sense of community and security.. They had tickets for some traditional folk music known as Ca Tre to, so we considered it and thought why not. That evening we headed back down finding the streets much easier to navigate and were treated to an hour of performance by different combinations of artists. The style is definitely something different, somewhat alienating but enjoyable none the less.. I got to have a go on two of the instruments as well which was good fun, then drumming along with the pro for a while - overall not a bad way to spend an evening.
Next day we headed down to the Womens' Museum, quite a fascinating place, delving into cultural and historical activity, participation or leadership in wars and obviously fashion. Set over three floors it was a good exhibit, covering the different ethnicities approaches to marital life, child bearing, food production or sale, and religious celebration across the country. Heading to West Lake across town we took out a swan pedalo and had a half hour paddle round but the squeaking boat and overcast sky left a little to be desired.
Our next plan was to find the best way of going to Halong Bay as there is a real multitude of options and tales ranging from the disastrous to exceedingly grand.. We were happy with something just nice and thought we'd found it through Kangaroo Cafe though sadly after waiting the extra day to set off with them on tuesday we were informed their boat was being checked by police as per standard for operators so they wouldn't run but could advise us another company; exactly what we were avoiding doing. We cancelled and eventually booked through our hotel on to Galaxy Cruise at a better than usual rate.. For the day in between we took a long walk round Hanoi of about 10km, going past the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Museum, the One Pillar Pagoda and finally the Temple of Literature. These were all pretty interesting, the Citadel district was very formal with certain roads not publicly used and the grounds surrounding the Presidential Palace that looked beautiful for a walk in, guarded and totally off limits. We'd missed the opening times for heading inside either 'Uncle Ho' buildings so carried on round. Arriving back fairly tired we managed one last trip down to the night market before awaiting the adventure to Halong in the morning.