HANOI ROCKS!

It's been a while since we've done a top ten list. So, the following are the top ten reasons, in no particular order, which make Hanoi rock!
1.Bia Hoi: Vietnam's signature service available on most street stalls and corners where kegs of micro brewed beer are distributed in various strengths, flavors and temperatures, all for usually less than 20 cents per glass.



2.Temple of Literature: Vietnam's wonderfully preserved first university, constructed in the 11th century, where steles, concrete inscribed pillars supported by turtle statues, display the names of the graduates of Confucian studies and their accomplishments and where beautiful architecture is balanced by peaceful surroundings.



3.Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex: As the name indicates, this is a complex in the middle of the city containing the Dien Huu Pagoda, the One Pillar Pagoda, the Presidential Palace, the Ho Chi Minh Museum, Ho Chi Minh's humble stilt house and the most amazing Ho Chi Minh mausoleum where visitors are thoroughly searched, orderly configured and hurriedly ushered through the building by soldiers wearing amazingly bright white and pressed uniforms and large munitions where Ho Chi Minh himself lies perfectly preserved in a glass case for over forty years and is available for viewing on all days except Monday and Friday and not between the months of September and December when he goes on hiatus to Russia.



4.Highway 4: Perhaps the best restaurant and best meal to be had in all of Vietnam, let alone Hanoi, where diners can experience such culinary delights as succulent skewered crocodile, delicately braised ostrich, tender jelly fish salad, perfectly seasoned locust, rare cooked horse and crispy pigs ear salad.



5.Street Food: Buy a few small plastic chairs and tables from Toys-R-Us, light a fire on the sidewalk and delight passersby with your Granny's greatest Vietnamese recipe, or any number of local and delightful treats which should always include bubble tea as a refresher and cafe sua da (iced sweet milk coffee) as a pick-me-up.



6.Street Life: Vendors and merchants call out to you from their storefronts, roaming vendors and merchants follow you insisting that you buy their products, motorbike drivers so eager to give you a lift, even if just around the corner, cyclo drivers urging you to take a one hour tour of the city, street stalls crammed with the likes of business folk, tourists, families and locals, horns, lots of honking horns, buzzing motorbikes, little children with whispy baby chick hair toddling around, souveneirs of every make and model and lots of foreigners looking lost, disoriented and completely out of place!



7.Roi Nuoc: Vietnam's ancient art of water puppetry dating back 1000 years and originally performed by farmers in their rice patties and now thanks to a young troupe of musicians and puppeteers, available for all to see in the City's water puppet theater



8.Shopping: Each street in this winding and maze like center of the old city has been apportioned to catering to one specific type of product, be it plastic, wood, worn, carried, bright, dull, expensive, cheap, necessary, useless, amazing or ordinary, it is all available and no reasonable price will be refused.



9.Hoan Kiem Lake: A beautiful and serene oasis located right in the heart of the thriving old city where visitors and worshipers alike can cross the wooden bridge onto the small island where the Ngoc Son (Jade Mountain) Temple is located where offerings are offered, photos are taken and where the legend of the 15th century Emperor, Ly Thai To, was made when a giant golden tortoise snatched the sword he used to defeat the Chinese and swam with it to the bottom of the lake which was aptly named the Lake of the Restored Sword.



10.St. Joseph's Cathedral: A taste of medieval Europe right smack dab in the middle of the city offering a quiet respite from the madness and chaos and providing a curious infusion of Christian and Buddhist design where bonzai trees flank statues of Jesus.