After breakfast we went back to the room and planned out what we wanted to see for the day. The first stop was Hoan Kiem Lake, which was a couple blocks from our hotel. The lake is pretty small and has a temple that goes out onto the lake that we explored. We also took our first selfi of the trip 😬.
Since all we had was American money we stopped at the ATM. The currency here is called the Vietnamese Dong and the exchange rate is approximately 1 USD to 20,000 Dong. So I took out 1 million Dong, no big deal.
After visiting the Ngoc Son temple we made our way around the lake to the Hoa Lo Prison which is now a mueseum. It was interesting to see the Vietnamese perspective on the war.
Being white and talk my dad and I stuck out like a sore thumb. Lots of people asked to take pictures with us haha it was an interesting experience.
Another weird thing about Vietnam is their traffic. There are probably 20 billion motorbikes in the city, they are literally everywhere. Also the city has no traffic rules, and stop lights are a scarcity. In order to cross the street you have to play a real life version of frogger, it's insane and very chaotic. Also I think people literally live on their motorbikes they fit so much stuff on their bikes it's ridiculous.
After the prison we walked to the one pillar pagoda and Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum which were pretty interesting. Finally, we made our way back to the hotel where we got some advice on where to go eat our lunch/dinner. We ended up going to a Vietnamese restaurant called 96 restaurant which was about a block away. The restaurant was very small but the food was delicious! I ended up getting Vietnamese style beef with pineapple and Hanoi beer.
After we ate about 5pm we got back to the hotel and really started feeling the effects of jet lag. We ended up falling asleep and waking up around midnight feeling wide awake! So tomorrow the plan is not to fall asleep until a normal time haha.
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