Thursday 2 days to go

The rain kept falling and so I packed up Carol's bike today and it only took two boxes and 2 whole rolls of sticky tape.
In the afternoon I decided I wanted to go for a blast across the river on the Long Bien bridge one that carries trains and bicycles/scooters. It is a very old and famous bridge. You can eat out on the bridge and it has plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables for sale at all the extra wide sections that are on the bridge.

 Before we packed the bike ( Trannie) I insisted Carol perform the obligatory ride down the hallway. So here it is Carol riding her bike down the hallway on the fourth floor of a Hanoi hotel on granite.

 The view from the 9th foor of the street behindof the hotel.

 The view of hanoi from the 9th floor.

 Long Bien Bridge has its own postcard, famous bridge in vietnamese history.

 Red River island farming which all frequently floods.

 Flood plain farmimg.

 The train heading away from me with an engine at the rear and the one way cycle lane.

 The train, the walk section and the two cycle lanes visible.

 If you look closely you will see the motorcycle going through the levee gap and the concrete blocks to the left on topo of the wall.

 This is how high the levee is and lots of people live on the other side beside the river.

 This is the road and cycle bridge about 1 km upstream from the train bridge, it is much busier and it bounced as a result of the volume of vehicles crossing it. You can easily see how wide the river really is from the photo.

 The Long Bien Bridge can be seen in the distance as well as the use of the flood plain and how it runs right up to the steet.

 Some wonderful topiary in the park around the Sword Lake.

 Lotus flowers growing in floating pots/frames on the lake all around the edge.

 The World viewed through Vietnamese eyes, Vietnam almost runs from the Artic circle to the Antartic circle. Australia is in the lower right corner and has two Cape Yorks.

 The traffic.

 Traffic Video.

 Carol is getting her shoes cleaned after being approached numerous times each day for 4 weeks.

The nightly rubbish collection in Hang Hom street. The system here in Hanoi is very efficient. I would describe it as a decentralised micro managed reccyling system. The way it works is you just leave/chuck your rubbish into the  street if you haven't already sold it to the cardboard lady. The collector who works only their designated area thoroughly sorts the rubbish and extracts everything that can be sold or recycled. They seperate all the valubles and bin all the actual rubbish at this goes to landfill. Then they push their full cart to the collection point. They then spread a large tarp out under the rear of the truck to collect spill and empty the carts.