 Hanoi Opera House / Street scene |
 Hanoi, where the late leader lies in state, is the true Ho Chi Minh City.
This must be the archetype Asian city of old: streets swirling with two-wheeled traffic, a cacophony of screeching and honking; crumbling colonial stucco, trailing wires, dark, neon-lit interiors where bare-chested figures slurp their noodle soup.
Hanoi is a city of kerbside hawker stalls and cafés, too, oases where the influence of the French colonisers lingers on.
It is a city too of museums, of tributes to wise men of the past. Pay your respects at the shrine of Uncle Ho; then join the ghosts of by-gone mandarins who burn incense at the shrine of a far more ancient sage, Confucius, in the Temple of Literature. Then take a break to chill out, the way the locals do!
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