The Jungle Book: June 3-6, Hanoi, Vietnam

To get to Hanoi I decided to take the overnight train, my first one which was quite an experience in itself. I booked a sleeper room for the 15 hour ride to Hanoi even though most of the trip was to be spent during the day. The first 1.5 hours were remarkable with beautiful landscape. On one side the view was of the ocean and beautiful beaches, with the other being of dense jungle. I shared the room with about 9 other Vietnamese people even though there was only room for 6. Even though they didn't speak much English they took a liking to me and soon enough I was surrounded by numerous Vietnamese of all ages. We arrived in Hanoi around 5am and to my surprise I ran into the two English girls that I befriended a few weeks back. We've been traveling throughout Hanoi together ever since.

The first few days here we walked all over town. Some of the highlights included Hoan Kiem Lake where legend has it that emperor Le Loi handed a magic sword called Heavens Will which brought him victory in his revolt against the Chinese Ming Dynasty back to the Golden Turtle God in the lake; the Temple of Literature a Confucius Temple and the first University in Vietnam; and to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum where we were able to see Ho Chi Minh's body. Despite the fact that he requested to be cremated, his body is kept in a tomb that visitors can see (except for 3 months when he is taken to "mother Russia for maintenance"). There were hundreds of people there (mostly Vietnamese) and we heard that locals come from all over the country just to see him.