brother in Hanoi

My brother and Ian are in Hanoi for five days so we've been doing the tourist trail. First Ho CHi Minh's mausoleum then the military museum. Ian works for the Australian War Memorial and comments that it is less biased than the military museum in Hanoi- which featured captured US "puppet forces" planes etc. We went to the Temple of Literature and the next day went to Halong Bay- which was hazier when I was last there but still beautiful. Have been sampling gourmet Vietnamese food (expensive!) and my first trip to a bia hoi- where I was the only woman drinking- something that I would not do on my own. I have also composed an article for Cultural Window the magazine that the Gioi publisher puts out on my impressions of Hanoi- sort of a more fragmented condensed version of this blog. I also met another Vietnamese translator Professor Lien Nguyen from Hanoi University whom teaches American literature and does translation for the author talks at the bookworm. I gave him a copy of the bilingual Fox Fairy story that I have and he will be sending me a novel that he thinks I should read (forgotten the author unfortunately!) I've also met a professor from the US whom is teaching in Hanoi whom may be getting me to talk to some of his history students- he bought Vixen and liked it a lot so met me at a gallery launch at the bookworm!