A quick detour out of our Thailand trip landed us in Hanoi, Vietnam for 3 days. Our friends Craig & Grace, with whom we’ve traveled before (Philippines, Italy & India) said, why don’t we meet in Vietnam over Christmas? Makes perfect sense to spend Christmas in a Buddhist-Communist (Socialist) country, right? It turns out that the Vietnamese have embraced Christmas with the same fervor as their pseudo capitalism.
We spent 3 days hanging around the French quarter, going in and out of shops (mostly galleries) with a few detours to see the sights. Hanoi is a fantastic walking city, especially if you stay at one of the hotels in the center of town such as the Hilton Hanoi. The culinary highlight was lunch at “Little Hanoi 1,” a hole in the wall Vietnamese place that 4 of us had lunch at for about $12. The Vietnamese 5 course dinner for Christmas Eve was also very memorable, especially the girls getting a second dessert because the staff thought they hadn’t served it to us!
Craig did a great job on his post about our time together in Hanoi, so I’ll link to his blog and you can read more if you’d like: Who wants to be a Millionaire?
From Hanoi we headed back to Bangkok for one more day of shopping and sightseeing. Since it was the weekend we headed to JJ Market which is just outside central Bangkok. This place is massive and you can find just about anything you are looking for. With the heat and humidity and the sheer amount of stuff and number of people we were a bit overwhelmed. Prachee picked up a few gifts and we headed back to Silom for some massages 
Writing this from the lounge at BKK airport – back to Bangalore tonight. Next is the Rickshaw rallye, so stay tuned!
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