A day to make the mind boggle

Oh yes, today turned out to be quite a day, despite the fact that we spent most of it in bed (Alfred: Well, of course, it is .... forget it, sorry). We got up at 0930 and grabbed breakfast just before they stopped serving (though I got the feeling they would have hung on anyway!). Then we went straight back to bed again, me only pausing to write the blog entry for yesterday. We finally arose at 1600 or so and headed out. We decided to do a tour of the lake and as we got there a voice said: 'Ruairí, is that you?'  Now, we are all used to the phenomenon of bumping into people where we least expect them and this seems to happen to the Irish more than most but the last time I saw Heloise Allan was in 2009 when we were both VSO volunteers in Rwanda and now we run into each other in Ha Noi. Small world.

After dinner, which was memorable in particular for Martine's minced beef soup and the morning glory fried in garlic (Alfred: Yes, my American friends, morning glory is something you eat over here and it is delicious!), we came back to the hotel and found our room had been decorated as in the photo below, with chilled white wine and a special honeymoon cake. And then we broke the corkscrew trying to open the wine and they had to send someone down the street to find another corkscrew! But it was so so sweet of them, really heartwarming in what is a very middle-of-the-range hotel. Must get on to the Tripadvisor site and write them up!!