I was wondering last night if it's possible to liken travelling alone to getting someone to open a bag of revels and pour the contents down a hill towards you. Its not a great analogy but sometimes it seems like that, everyone that rolls into your path is different but they usually have a pretty similar flavour to the ones that look like them. Except the misshapen ones, they're just odd, and they usually appear at train stations...
Hanoi is a crazy place with streets whose names change at every junction...the roads are buzzing with motos and cyclos and people, I love the craziness. I feel safest on the back of a moto as long as I have a nice sober driver like my guide Tuan, probably the first genuinely helpful guide I've ever come across. I visited most of the temples and pagodas in Hanoi with him, including one with a big turtle in it. Apparently the lake is full of big turtles. They seem to be a recurring theme in my life lately...
This morning I saw Ho Chi Minhs dead body, it didn't smell at all. He looked pretty peaceful. Uncle Ho was a great man.