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Our hotel was in the Old Quarter of Hanoi. It's about a 35 block area full of restaurants, bars and tourist shops. Narrow streets but great fun to wonder around. We headed out to eat. We didn't get very far when he started talking to the manager of a restaurant. Next thing I know we are seated and he is ordering. He ordered pasta for me because it was the only western option they had. I have no idea what he had, but he was liking it. We wandered around for a few hours. A drink here a drink there. The city doesn't seem to stay awake as late a Bangkok. Seemed by 11 or so, it was quite quiet. Off to bed. The next day I ordered a full day private tour. It was a bit expensive by Vietnam standards. Got mini-van and driver. English speaking tour guide. Included all admissions and lunch. $175 for 2 people. But because it was private we could dictate time and a couple of other things to see. Saw most of the major sights. Biggest dissapointment was not being able to get into the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. Went by it, but the lines were huge and a long walk to get there. My legs were saying, it ain't going to happen. Seems schools were out and thousands of school kids go to see Uncle Ho. I asked tour guide if they were required to go. She said no, but her body language told me otherwise. We saw a few museums and the prison that held Americans during Vietnam War. John McCain is the highlight of this place. It's said Vietnam holds no grudge against Americans now, but touring the prison would leave you to believe otherwise. His name was dropped at least 10 times. Lunch was interesting. Tour guide usually takes you to a tourist type restaurant. But I wasn't eating and she wanted to take my friend to a favorite Vietnamese restaurant of hers. So we crossed town, which I liked. I loved driving around the city. Went into a little restaurant where they just ate away. He said it was great. We started about 9am. We saw about everything I wanted by about 3, .so I told guide, time to wrap it up. Back to hotel. Driving around Hanoi is not something any of us could do. Basically there are no traffic rules. I found it fastinating . Walking is even a bigger challenge. You just start walking, hold onto each other and hope for the best. They love their horns. It's how they survive. One the fun things that happened....the hotel staff and tour guide, believed my friend was a vip or wealthy Vietnamese. He lives and works in Bangkok. (Of course they don't know what he does.) He flew to Hanoi in Business. I let him handle the money, so they always saw him with a pile of cash. He just seemed so International. The hotel staff was honored he was staying in their hotel. They don't get Vietnamese customers. He must have talked to everybody that worked there. He said it was the longest conversations he has had in a year in his language. He is fluent in Thai and uses that here in Bangkok. Everything went well. We saw a lot in a short trip. They people were very friendly and much less pushy than in Bangkok. You can see it's just on the edge of some good economic things happening. I have seen on tv ads in Bangkok and in Hanoi. Barney Frank is heading up a group of world business leaders next month for the largest business symposium Vietnam has ever had. Time to go back to Bangkok yesterday. He throws a curve at me. As long as I am here, do you mind if I go spend a couple of days with my family and take bus back to Bangkok. Not really a big deal. Easy for me, I'm still flying. He now has a 24 hour bus trip. Again hotel is amazing. He asked asst manager how far bus station is. But the time they got done, they had made reservation and printed ticket for him. Then called taxi. Of course they put price of ticket on my bill. It was only $9. I used miles for his plane ticket. Called, cancelled his seat and got my miles back. As I type this at 1:30 am, he is on a bus someplace in Laos. He mentioned I go with him. That wasn't going to happen. When I left Hanoi, it was about 60 degrees and raining. When I got off the plane in Bangkok, it was 101 degrees. That 60 felt great. All in all I loved every minute. I've been around a lot of the world and Hanoi is so much different than anywhere I've been. We will defiantly go back at some point and explore some more. I have an American friend in town. He went to Saigon for a few days. He liked it so much, he extended and then went up to Hanoi. Overall his trip became 2weeks. I weigh I could have stayed long, but have something to look forward to.

My standard general observation about the media is, have you ever been present when an auto accident occured and then heard or read the media report of same? Not what you saw, is it? Best regards, RA1

Always. In fact I try to resist reading general newspaper articles about technical subjects I may know anything about. But usually I can't stop from looking to see how creatively they got it wrong. I frequently find myself wishing I had some of whatever drug they must have been on.

Surely you have noticed the media like this before. I am almost always in awe when the get it (technically) correct or otherwise. Best regards, RA1

Thank you for the kind words. You know, you should never go back and read a long post you did yesterday. Auto-correct really makes you look bad.

Wonderful pair of posts, Planetime. Well written. I truly enjoyed them. And your sleeping friend was uber cute.

We stayed at the. Essence Palace Hotel. They have 3 hotels very close to each other. This is the newest and closet to Hoan Kiem Lake. www.essencehanoihotel.com. I was told if you book directly thru them, you get free breakfast. Nice little perk.

Great report. Thanks so much. Best regards, RA1

I'm down to the last two weeks of my 8 week trip to Bangkok. I've had a great time. Not a lot to post about as I've just been hanging out with friends. I'll probably do a last minute rush to a few massage palors as time winds down. One thing I wanted to do on this trip was explore outside of Bangkok with the extra time. It didn't really happen as many friends were around and I just stayed busy. But the one trip I really did want to do was to Vietnam. My BF is Vietnamese. He is from Hue in the central part of the country. I wanted to go to Hanoi and he had never been there. So we started planning. Qatar Airways is part of One World and I have a bunch of American Airlines miles. I was able to get 2 business class seats for the dates we wanted. It's only a 90 minute flight and my friend has never been on a plane before. So it was fun. I got a hotel recommendation from Firecat. Tuned out to be great. A newer boutique type with great location. We were able to use the Cathay Pacific lounge at the Bangkok airport. Flight was a bit delayed so great place to hang out. Time to go. My friend couldn't understand why 250 people boarding and yet only 5 people in business. He couldn't figure out where all those people went. It was kind of funny. They served a snack and then he discovered the seat became a bed. It was lights out for an hour. Hanoi has a new airport. It was very quiet when we arrived and we were thru immigration in minutes. I got a visa in Bangkok. A little expensive at $65. For 30 days. But better than standing in line for visa on arrival. I don't know how they do it but luggage was waiting for us when we got to baggage claim. Hotel arranged a car. $18. For 40 kilometer ride. Ride to city was interesting. Lots of rice fields and wide open spaces. You keep looking for city skyline, but then realize there really isn't one. It appears that a few new high rise apartment buildings are going up. But just a few, maybe 20 story buildings. Seems like the biggest buildings are western hotels. They built a new highway from the airport to the city limits. Then it begins. There is no highway system in the city. Not so many cars as in most crowed cities, but the barrage of motor bikes begins, it's amazing. I was told average of 2 bikes per family. There are no traffic rules. Bikes just come at you from every direction. But these people grow up with this system and it works for them. Very few traffic lights, and they don't mean anything. People just drive and don't stop. We got to the hotel without any incidents. Don't know how. Arrival at hotel is a team effort. Customer service is huge. 2 guys come and get our bags. Asst Manager greets us at the door. They take passports then direct us to sitting area. Tea and hot towels. Then asst manager comes with paperwork and keys. He explains the hotel to us. My friend speaks very little English so I asked if manager would explain in Vietnamese. They got along just swell. My conversation was 5 minutes, his was 15 . Don't know what they talked about, but they were having a good time. Were introduced to guy at travel desk. I booked a day tour of the city for next day. More about that later. On a side note... staff we dealt with at check in were really hot guys. I would say all 30 and under Asst manager took us to our room. I booked a junior suite. It appeared to be just a regular room. Though a very nice room with large bathroom. I found out they call it Jr Suite because of the amenities. We had balcony, a lap top, a mini bar that was free and restocked each day and breakfast buffet was included. $85. Rooms without amenities started at $45. I was very happy with what we got for what I paid. We arrived at the hotel about 4pm. My friend didn't sleep the night before so asked if he could nap for about 2 hours. No problem. Gave me a little time to explore the hotel a bit. 6:30 he is up and we get ready to head out. I'm not big into Asian foods so I let him pick out the places he wanted to eat. He lives in Bangkok so eats Thai all the time. So it was his time to get all his favorites while in his country. The money situation is crazy. $100 US is 2.2 million Vietnam Dong. I just let him hold the money and pay for everything. He would just convert it into Thai Baht for me so I knew what was going on. It was great having him on the trip with me as a person, but the fact he speaks the language made the trip so much more fun. It's 9pm here now and a friend just called to go out to dinner, so will finish up with the rest when I get back.

I agree... if you think along the line of the "Big Mac" index or like I do, the cost of a coconut (really)...the current true value of the BRL is 5-1 usd