Day 71 the women's museum, late lunch by the lake, Puppetry and the old quarter.

Monday 12th of March
Very late start, we were both tired from our excursions.
We made it to breakfast, then we headed out to the Vietnamese Women's museum.

On the steps of the museum was an exhibit by a French photographer who lives in Vietnam, Réhahn . Karen loved these photos.

The lobby is equipped with a very soviet style statue, with a lot of subtle symbology about womanhood.

all the mouths are covered because the smiling is done with the expression in the eyes.

Equipped with an audio guide each we tackled the 3 upper floors, learning about women's traditional lives in Vietnam on the first floor, their contributions to the wars of the last century with the French and mostly the Americans, and on the top floor the evolution of traditional dress in Vietnam to the iconic dress of today.

women's work

 trying to use the grinder

This was not as easy as it might look!

We like museums , so we were in there for quite a while resulting in our late departure for lunch (3:15pm!) and our next activity.

motorcycles are the way to get around Hanoi

Hanoi lake

We passed a cafe on the lake while we were heading to the office of the company we booked with for a walking tour and the water puppet show, so we grabbed a bite to eat there and hoped they would serve us extra quickly. We then had a quick march to get to the top end of the lake and to where we had to be. We should have been there at 3:30, we were definitely running late
On arrival at the office of the company we'd booked with we were told the guide was waiting at our hotel for us. One of the guys in the office had emailed us an update to that effect but we'd already left by the time he sent it.

We waited outside the puppet theatre for our guide and tickets. Eventually he arrived and we went to see the water puppet theatre.
The puppets are very clever, the water conceals how the puppets are operated, and it's definitely not Thunderbirds.

After the puppet show we met our tour guide for a tour of the old town, it was a little disappointing as he didn't really show us much, he had 2 stops, one for an ice cream and one for a coffee. Karen insisted we visit the Catholic cathedral.

St Josephs Catholic Cathedral

architecture is interesting

metal street, welding taking place on the street

industrial coffee grinding machine in tiny coffee shop

Jono really like the coffee

We dismissed the guide and set out on our own.

street lady we bought doughnuts from

crossing the road

our hotel

We picked up some doughnuts from a street seller, which might have been the start of my upset stomach for the next two days although Karen didn't have any problems.
Back at the hotel we turned in for the night.