After getting back from Halong Bay on Friday afternoon, we just chilled for the rest of the day.

The plan was to do the same on Saturday morning too. However, the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam had other ideas. We were awoken at six am by speeches blaring from loudspeakers along the street outside. Apparently this is a daily event all over the city. It’s the government’s way of making sure everyone’s up in time for work (not very fair if you work nights though!). Our guide told us that the speeches are communist propaganda repeated over and over. Anyway, it meant we had plenty of time to enjoy the lovely breakfast buffet!

We had tickets to go see a water puppets show in the afternoon. Hanoi has a long tradition of water puppetry, and we figured the kids would probably enjoy this more than the visit to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum! It’s a short enough show – just under an hour – so it’s a good length for kids’ attention spans. They all seemed to enjoy it. The Boy especially enjoyed the dragons scene.

Water puppetry in action (it gets better (but not much)):

As it was our last day in Hanoi, we also decided to have another crack at the old town. This time, DW organised it (so you know it’s going to be good then!). She got the hotel to arrange three cyclos for us to escort us around the narrow streets in style. A cyclo is a comfy padded seat on wheels that’s pushed along by a guy on a bike. Here’s the crew all lined up and ready for the off:

It’s slow, but very pleasant. As we weren’t as worried about getting run over this time, we all enjoyed this tour around the old town much more than the first one. We got to actually take in some of what was going on around us:

The trip was so comfortable that The Boy fell asleep halfway along:

Later that evening, there was an open air concert just down the street from our hotel. Apparently this was to mark Earth Hour which was going on worldwide that weekend. In Hanoi, they scheduled this hour-long concert as the city’s participation. All of the streets around were in darkness with all lights turned out, so the concert venue itself (in front of the opera house) became a beacon of light for the hour.

Myself and the girls decided to join in the fun. There was a nice party atmosphere with everyone very relaxed and very friendly locals. Amazingly, and very different to back home, when the hour was up the concert ended bang on the nose, all the street lights came back on, and everyone started leaving to go home. In good form, but not out partying for the night. Perhaps something to do with the six am wake up messages!

This day in Hanoi was a much better and more enjoyable experience than our first day here. As ever, the lesson is simple: the DW organised tour is always better!