Hue, Hanoi, and a few days in the north

In Hue we visited the Imperial Palace and the Forbidden city within. It was really hot and tiring, and the palace itself has been heavily bombed during the war. We also visited a pretty boring museum about "Uncle Ho".

When we tried to pay for the hotel we discovered that our credit cards were blocked. We both use Mastercard and it took two days of us calling until they agreed to unblock them. The suspected a fraud but all operations they considered were mine.

In the evening we took a flight to Hanoi, where our travel agency for the north had a car waiting for us, so that was really welcome. We arrived late in the hotel, and I'm pretty sure I got bitten by bedbugs, as we are expected to go back there at the end of the trip I'll double check the mattress... And if it's the same room I'll ask for another one!

According to Google it's not dangerous just unpleasant, that's a relief!

The next day we walked around Hanoi, where traffic is even heavier than in HCMC in my opinion! We walked through the old town, very tiring, then took a cab to go to the ethnographic museum. There are 54 different ethnicities in Vietnam, and we already saw a few of them. The museum was really nice. We can see how these people live and how they dress.

The next day we started our tour with our guide, a young guy (25) from the Dao ethnicity called Jean. We've got our own car and a driver. The first day was really long, on our way to Bac Ha, where we arrived around 7.00PM. The landscape was really nice but I fell asleep a few times. And being in the back of a car makes me a bit nauseous, Julie you can relate!

So in the evening we stayed in a local house, owned by an ethnic Tay family. They prepared dinner, which was really excellent, no weird food or anything strange, very nice. Their house was really clean and welcoming. We couldn't really talk together, Jean translated, but the man poured us several shots of rice wine, it was fun.

For breakfast the lady prepared crêpes (they were thin and good) while they had pho bo.

Today we visited the market of Bac Ha, a famous market where lots of the surrounding ethnicities come to deal. We saw lots of h'mong, with colorful dresses. You can buy livestock there, clothes, vegetables, fruits... And have lunch. It was fun, I tried a fried sticky rice cake that was really good and had a pineapple.

On our way we also saw a local ethnicity, the Tai, not the same, they have black teeth because of a kind of chewing gum they use.

Overall here people are more shy than in the south. It was really easy to take pictures down there, here they don't like it so much. We also saw a tea workshop, it was interesting. They drink a lot of tea here, more than in the south.

Kisses to all!