Hanoi second day

day two completed! What amazes me is how much you can get on to a motor scooter. So far have observed the usual families of four or more, piles of crates of who knows what, but the most impressive was two chaps with a huge sheet of glass held upright between them. Did not impede their speed at all! Traffic is constant, but not aimed at pedestrians, fortunately. Walked through the blacksmith street - spectacular - and in amongst all the sparks etc was a huge Rottweiler. He sat int he middle of the street for a scratch and the scooters and cars all just went round him, he remained completely unfazed! Earlier we went to Hoan Kiem lake -very peaceful comparatively speaking -and took heaps of photos, we did a self-guided (well actually Lonely Planet) walk of the old city -supposed two hours plus - we took about six with loads of side trips . SUsan got absolutely exhausted so we took a long hotel break about halfway through. The place is amazing - amazingly clean - smells are okay -some smog or maybe it was a very overcast day. Had some pho ga for morning tea and a decent lunch at a little restaurant S had roll your own spring rolls with caramelised chilli beef and revisited the them for dinner with cha ca which is do it yourself rice rolls with fish, pineapple, peanuts, cucumber, lettuce and a lovely dipping sauce. The rice papers come in their individual packs containing about 10 or so papers. after dinner went to the water puppets - really enjoyable but were both tired and got lost afterwards so got a cyclo back - he got lost - and then tried to rip us off by trying to charge us twice the exorbitant fee at the end - not impressed. ) Heat and pounding disco didn't help two weary people. So ended day two