Woke up to 100% chance of rain all day and AQI of 222. The elements were against us. Plastic rain ponchos were handed out as the morning consisted of riding around town on the back of lady-driven motor scooters.

Our first stop was Hao Lo Prison, aka “Hanoi Hilton”. Originally built by the French in 1897 to suppress revolutionaries uprising against colonial rule, it later held POW’s like Sen. John McCain during the Vietnam War.

Back on the bikes and our next stop was for some famous egg coffee. Invented in 1940 when milk was hard to find, some guy decided to whip up some egg cream to put in his coffee. Now it’s made with honey, caramel syrup, condensed milk, egg yolk and a touch of rum and it’s the iconic drink of Vietnam. Whipped for 5-8 minutes and a shot of espresso added, it’s a creamy, desserty drink.

We’re getting pretty soggy now but there’s more to see. Next: Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. We kinda thought we would actually see the tomb but the closest we got was standing a football field away in the pouring rain. Apparently he’s displayed in an embalmed state for over 10,000 visitors a day.

A pit stop to view the remains of a B-52 bomber that was shot down in 1972. The Vietnamese felt they were so successful in downing foreign aircraft they claimed they were mining in the sky…(they scavenged and reused every bit of metal, ie turning it into cutlery).

Our last stop was for lunch: famous Bun Cha grilled pork and noodles; beautifully presented in wicker/banana leaf/pottery.

We had a nice break back at the hotel then congregated again in the lobby at 3pm to take a bus out of town to Bat Trang, a ~1000 year old pottery village. We had a short tour of the kilns, actually walking inside one of the 5 beehive shaped kilns, then sat down at a manual potters’ wheel to try our hand at throwing clay.

After our lesson we walked 5 minutes down some alleyways to have a special dinner at an elder’s home. Apparently the most affluent and influential family in the area, they open their door/kitchen to groups to have a classic Northern Vietnamese meal and learn about their family. They were once extremely wealthy, owning 30 pottery factories and 30 homes until 1953 when the communist government confiscated 29 of each. In 2005 reparations were made: they received $100(!!!).

We returned about 8:40pm and some of the youngsters headed out to visit the night market. Having already seen three I was happy to call it a night!