So many adventures

Yesterday Violet took me out for adventures in Hanoi, we saw the temple of literature, and a really lovely old church and wandered round just being in Hanoi for a bit. We had lunch with Violet's friends and also stopped for iced coffee in a little place and watched the world go by. It was amazing to have such a peaceful day in such a busy city.

In the evening I met my tour group, and they seem like a really solid group of girls, although we're still waiting on the two Mexicans. Our tour leader is really nice and very eager, so I think we'll get along well.

Last night a couple of friends from the group and I met up with Violet and her friends and we did clubbing in Hanoi, take two. We dicided to go out a little earlier to avoid being closed down after two songs, but apparently it wasn't meant to be, and after having been kicked out of a bunch of clubs and bars, we wound up in a place called Dracula playing Jenga while drinking beer called La Rue, like real adults.

This morning we went adventured out in the (light) rain and visited the bank and I purchased for myself a sim card for my phone, the best thing about this is that the provider is called Tomato. I think this is brilliant. Then since the rain had stopped we decided to go visit the one pillar pagoda. The no rain situation lasted about three photographs and then the heavens opened. I have literally never seen anything quite like the amount of rain that was falling, the benches we were sitting on were covered in about 10 minutes.

The hotel staff were very concerned about how wet we were when we got back, but it was definitely worth it for the laughs and I think I managed to take some nice pictures, but I'll keep you updated.

This afternoon we're off to the Water Puppet show, which is a special Hanoi thing I believe, I'm not really sure what it involves, but everyone has been raving so I'm looking forward to it, and then we climb aboard the overnight train to Sapa, for the trecking portion of our adventures.

So many adventures, so little time!