City sights today.

Today we visited some historic sites. The first port of call was the citadel, a large complex originally built in 1010 on the transference of the capital from Hue. The plan is similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing, but on a much smaller scale. This is a world heritage cultural site, and there is a lot of excavation going on. There are some spectacular exhibits of some of  the finds already. We particularly enjoyed the hundreds of bonsai trees, some so large that they must be hundreds of years old.

 From there we walked about 10 mins south to the KOTO restaurant, which serves Vietnamese and Western food. KOTO is a non profit organisation which trains underprivileged young people so that they can go on to jobs in high end hotels and the catering industry.  The food and service were excellent, the trainee waiters were very smiley and even entertained a five year old, bymaking masks from the leaves of the tree outside.

Amanda and Orlo left us after lunch and we went to the Temple of Literature, which was the first university in Vietnam, founded in 1070! It was lovely to see young graduates celebrating their graduation there, quite a few groups of them, all the girls dressed in white or cream ao dais, and the young men in derk suits, white shirt and ties.

There is a national holiday this week, In commemoration of the first King, Revolution Day and Labour Day, so the city is bedecked with the national flag and another colourful flag, of which we have not yet learned the significance.

When we left the temple complex we went to a craft shop which sells fair trade goods from all over the country. I made a few purchases for presents for birthdays and Christmas. Then we walked north to the huge parade ground and Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum,  and the new parliament building which faces it across a very impressive space. We then walked a couple of blocks further north to reach the West Lake again, where we stopped for a drink on one of the restaurant boat beside the swan pedalo station.

Then it was time to negotiate the traffic once again to cross the road to hail a taxi and come home. The weather has been good again today, warm but hazy And not too hot.

Tomorrow we leave for Siem Reap, so we will be packing in the morning, I think we will have to be at the airport circa 1.30pm.

Next blog will be from Cambodia!!