Got a taxi into the centre and walked around the old town for a while. I didn't have a clue where I was in the city, but the guys at Hanoi backpackers hostel helped me out and even gave me a map, looks a pretty good place to stay ( http://www.hanoibackpackershostel.com ). My watch had packed up, so I went to a department store to look at the watches. As I walked around the watch counters in the store, the assistants followed me around, this got quite off-putting, I had three assistants in white suits, all female, all about 18 following me; literally everytime I took 5 steps to the right they would do the same and everytime I stepped to the left they would do the same. At some point this got quite ammusing to have this entourage so I played around a little a kept changing directions. Once I had found a couple of watches I wanted to try on, there was no chance of me actually doing the watch strap up myself, no this was definately the duty of the sales assistant; I found all this attention a little clostraphobic. But in the end I got a watch.
I walked around the lake and then walked a couple of miles over to the Ho Chi Minh Mausaleum, stopping off at the Army Museum which was closed.
The 2 mile walk took a long time, crossing the road in Vietnam is not easy and I have found the best thing to do is take a leap of faith and just walk out infront of the scooters.
The pavements (sidewalks) are blocked up with parked scooters, people cooking and people spray-painting various pieces of craftwork.
The mauseleum was closed, but I found a nice cafe next to the Army Museum which was a welcome break from the humidity.
I've decided to travel down to Hue by plane now rather than overnight train. I have figured that I won't see a huge amount on overnight train and the journey takes about 12 hours, with the air fairs here so reasonable, I am going to fly business to Hue (one hour), on my flight up I found that flying business was good, the difference in price between business and economy of vietnam airlines is relatively low, so it is a good way of getting food and Internet in the airline lounge.
Bought the ticket at the hotel travel desk.
I've decided not to go to Hu Long Bay tomorrow, despite it being an amazing place I am sure, the cost in money and time is large and I am so "travelled out" that I have decided to take a day of rest, update my blog, etc.
