This journal contains photos of miscellaneous buildings & street scenes that caught my eye on my two cyclo tours of the old & French quarter. I had a list of the primary sights I wanted to see, but I also wanted to just roam the narrow streets to get the full flavor of the place. My old driver & I quickly acquired a system. If I wanted to stop to take a photo, I would just put out my arm. Sometimes I just shot from the seat of the cyclo without getting out. It didn't take long that he knew when I would want to stop without the signal. He also chose the route so I could see more of what interested me. He was a clever & obliging fellow. He watched the traffic for me when I was darting about. He spoke no English but we managed fine with sign language. There was one time where I had trouble getting him to understand where I wanted to go (I wanted to go back to the Cathedral for a 2nd time, which confused him), so he peddled over to a hotel & asked the bell hop to help us. On the day that I left to go home, he came to the taxi to say goodbye. Another travel character that will be forever burned in my memory.

I didn't get any photos of the show, but we did go to the Water Puppets show which was excellent. Here's their web site for more information, including clips of performances: http://thanglongwaterpuppet.org/outstanding.htm

Here's an interesting 1999 article titled "The Changing Face of Hanoi" you may want to read: http://www.aseanfocus.com/asiananalysis/article.cfm?articleID=175 Among other things, the article deals with unabated & uncontrolled building and squatting in the old city center which threatens some 1700 historical & cultural monuments, of which over 500 have been classified by the state. Because of "'urbanization', 'mindlessness', and 'very loose laws', many of these monuments are being seriously violated or sinking from view. While some squatting on historical sites has long been accepted, the phenomenon of large numbers of families occupying the sites and building houses on them is quite recent." hmmmmmmm.....Do we have another Penang in the making? I hope not....