Back to Hanoi - Day 5

I woke up around 4:30am this morning and Mom was reading under her duvet. I reminded her that she didn't have to do that but I guess she was cold too so it wasn't just that she was trying to keep the light out.

At 6:30am I went up and got coffee (it's so good) for both of us.  We didn't go and do the big cave tour today so I spent some time on the balcony chatting with Jay.

At 8:45am everyone was back from the quick trip to the cave.  They did say that it was impressive how they've created an attraction out of it.  It was a quick trip over, they left at 7:45 and were back an hour later.

After breakfast we packed up the rest of our bags, checked out and were off the ship by 10:00am.

VINHomes is taking down this mountain just outside of the Bay (within 3 mins) in order to put homes in - it's so crazy.  Hieu said "taking down" I don't know if they're literally making it flat or,  more likely, will have homes on ridges overlooking the bay.  He said they'll be between $5-7M USD each and will be owned by wealthy Vietnamese.

We stopped at a market on the way back which is a not for profit and provides work for 500 adults of various abilities - some are deaf, some have physical limitations, and they were working on needlepoint art that was incredible. A few people in our group made purchases and then we left and had about another hour in the bus before we arrived in Hanoi around 2pm back to the same hotel we were in before.  Our rooms were ready so we quickly went up and got settled and then Mom and I headed out to walk to a shopping centre.  It's a 40 min walk in 32 feels like 37 degree weather but there was a breeze and now all that green makes sense because both sides of the street were pretty shady. There are a lot of different styled tiled sidwalks.  I didn't take pictures of the normal ones but this was a nice area in front of a hotel I think.

The mall was not a success.  The Coach store I went to to look for something for the girls was super small and didn't have anything I was looking for and, despite looking in 5-6 stores, Mom couldn't find anything but short shorts (she couldn't find a couple pairs of shorts at home so only brought 2 pair and then a couple pairs of capris).

As soon as we got to the Hanoi Centre we looked for food, we hadn't had any lunch yet and it was about 2:30pm and more importantly something to drink after the long walk.  I googled where is the food court and it said there really isn't one but the majority of the food is on the B1 level so we went down there into a market type store with a cafe and shared a ham and cheese croissant and I ended up with a Coke Zero when I asked for a Soda because there was no soda water cold (and they told us not to use ice out in the wild even though this is a VERY nice mall - think Yorkdale)..the can was gold and I said "is this flavoured?" She said no, just normal.  Ok.  Turns out it was vanilla which I read afterwards too but could taste.  It wasn't a bad flavour just unexpected.

We had already decided we would get a Grab (equivalent to an Uber) back to the hotel but also Mom's sandals gave her blisters on the pad of her foot under her big toe so we'll have to be careful about that for the next few days.  A 40 min walk there was still a 17 min drive back because of traffic.

We have to meet the Cruise Director who will take over from Hieu.  We had to give him our passports, $100 for our Cambodia visas and our Vietnam Visas for him to hold and he gave us packages with info for the next few days.  Tomorrow we have a city tour and have to wear clothing that covers our knees and shoulders (they said T-Shirts and capris are fine).

Then we came back up to the room and I've been doom scrolling until I noticed that Mom is napping and now I'm writing the blog.  Not so much happened today so it's not super exciting.

I woke Mom up around 7pm and we went to the Italian restaurant across the street. We shared a pizza with burrata, parma and arugula and had Coke Zeros - I said "I'll have mine with no ice" and Mom said "I'll have ice"  "No you won't"  "Oh yeah, no I won't" - what's Rule #1!! It’s a cool building I think it’s part museum and cultural centre and part restaurant. The restaurant is Vespa themed, had several Vespa’s and this wall of old celebs. 

It’s 8pm now and we ran into Jo, Conrad, Suzie and Chris just outside the hotel before coming up to our room. They went to the Argentinian Steakhouse for dinner. 

Nothing else happening tonight!