Hoan Kiem Lake

Jane and I had a most interesting morning wandering through the back streets of Hanoi's old quarter with Mark who is a food blogger and guide from Australia.  He introduced us to an amazing range of delicious freshly cooked street food and we ate things and in places we would normally have stayed well clear of.   My favourite was this from his blog  I recommend you contact him for a tour if you are in Hanoi

This evening we went to the traditional water puppet show which was really good and told the story (among other things) of the golden turtle of  Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi which presented a magical sword to General Le Loi to help him expel the Chinese during the Ming Dynasty.

My Blip picture shows the Thap Rua or Turtle Tower in the lake.  As today was very misty,  the light was extremely subtle and I liked the way the tower was receding into the mist.

I could have blipped many shots of the chaotic street scene in Hanoi but I thought Technophobe's did the job much better so I settled for a landscape instead.  I will upload more pictures to Flickr soon.