luck affair but having said all of that, all of the craziness works in its own kind of way.

After the hectic old quarter the lakeside is in complete contrast and is really quite chilled. The lakeside area is Hanoi’s heart and soul apparently and this is where most Vietnamese come to hang out. Its not a big lake, but it is very charming it almost makes you feel like your not really in the capital of Vietnam. Hanoi definitely has lot more appeal than Hoi Chi Min City.

After chilling by the lake for a bit we decided to head off to the Presidential Palace and Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. Uncle Ho goes in for repairs each November and December, so you can’t see him, not that we were planning to anyway. I just don’t really see the fascination with checking out dead Communist leaders in

small dark rooms!! The area around though is impressive, it’s a typically communist wide open space which makes the mausoleum look all the more impressive. As Mausoleums for dead communist guys go, this one was pretty big. The Presidential Palace next door was quite lovely too!

Round the corner though we found the Botanical Gardens. Now unlike the ones in Ho Chi Minh these were largely zoo free, and really rather pleasant - a total antidote to the Old Quarter, so we lingered here for a good while, before going to see the B52 memorial - the remains of a B52 bomber that the Vietnamese shot down, which landed in the middle of a lake. It was pretty interesting getting to it, as we had to go down a maze of back streets, and felt like we got a real flavour of local Hanoi life!! The monument itself was quite spooky. Seeing the parts of the plane in a small lake in the middle of a residential