We won the lottery once again. We are Dongillionaires!
Too bad all that dong really only will buy you 1 beer and 1 cocktail in the Singapore airport
Now that we are broke again Barbara waits patiently for the plane to fly us to Hanoi. The guy next to her is asleep
There it is Hanoi from 20,000 feet and at night. Ain't it nice
From our hotel room
The sea of mopeds that can be found on every sidewalk every alley every where
This is what we really came to the Nam for, Pho, uuummmm
The next day, rain, lots of rain, but that didn't stop us. We just found out what big pansies we have become. It was friggin cold
They did have some really beautiful buildings
Rain or shine heels are the way to go
I love the bonsai trees on the back of the mopeds
Mobil food vendors
Side walk cafes
or just a chair there was food everywhere. A little bamboo with your Pho
Barbara has started thinking outside the box about her career path.
Lamp any one
More food
Yes I am happy. Let me just say now I probably put on 20 pounds on this trip. I couldn't control my eating, there was just too much food
So good


All gone... Next
I thought about eating this until Barbara told me it wasn't dessert
Barbara has a theory, and its a pretty good theory. If you have a drink, preferably a gin drink, after eating street food you won't ever get sick. It seemed to work. We didn't get sick the whole trip. Keep the gin coming
We sat and watched the delivery guys come and go, as we were drinking our after snack gin, and were amazed.They would pile all sorts of stuff on the back of these scooters and never strap anything down and away they went. Crazy.
Strawberry anyone
Its a little hard on the ego but a word of advice, if you are more than 5 foot tall shop here. We would stop into places and ask if they had anything for me and they would just say no. Maybe it was all the food,,,
The wires kind of kill the view, don't ya think

It wouldn't be a proper city in SE Asia without a chicken walking down the street
we did love all the water gardens
These are what I like to call the wheeled coffin of death
This is Barbara and I on our first ride in the wheeled coffin of death. This was Christmas night and I am not sure what possessed us but let me just say it was terrifying when we got caught in the middle of an intersection with scooters and cars flying all around us and the old fella in the back had to get off the bicycle that powers the wheeled coffin of death and basically get a running start to get us going again because we were apparently too heavy for him to just start peddling. Awesome
A little reminder of where we are, Communism ain't dead yet
You ever wonder bout those reports of the bus crashes and there are no survivors? Here is the reason why. How in the hell are you supposed to get out of this thing if something went wrong. Again, Awesome
Barbara decided it was best to sleep instead of watch
Yes those are bananas hanging off of his coat.
We are headed to the Perfume Pagoda which is an hour ride upstream in a Vietnamese canoe. Here come the vultures, I mean canoes. These ladies were great and they worked very hard paddleing us around, just dont pull out any money in front of them, it will be gone in a second!
Did I mention it was cold
But very beautiful
A job for everyone. Not really sure what this guy did though. I think he just sat there and watched the boats go by
I loved the road signs on the river
Instead of mopeds now its canoes
Again with the heals.
Here's what she had to walk up. It was an hours walk. Yes Barbara punched me when I started laughing
Excellent reward. Apparently Buddists have been making the pilgrammage to this cave for hundreds of years
It was quite spectacular

This truck rocked. No muffler and one gear. Why they didn't put it out of its misery I will never know
A little warmer on the way back

Now this guy, Either he's landing planes or fishing I don't know which
Lotus
The trip back was very peaceful
Everywhere you looked there was a pagoda along the river
Back to civilization?
This is where Barbara wants to live. Just a quaint little place in Hanoi
This is the Metropol Hotel, a very expensive hotel
A hotel that everyone who is getting married comes to to get their picture taken
What the hell we were thinking when we decided to stop and have a cheese fondue is a mystery
Uumm molten cheese I guess I should say at this time I have never had cheese fondue
Not until now. WOW That was good. A little hard on the system, but good. I should probably eat some street food with out the gin after this
Barbara likes it
The Cathedral in Hanoi
Hair wash anyone.
Our hotel. Very nice place. Barbara picked it out. For some reason she doesn't let me pick out the hotels anymore. Maybe it's because I figure we should only pay about 30 bucks, I don't think this place cost 30 bucks.

More installments of the trip to follow

Bye for now