We decided to orientate ourselves by walking around the central lake. We visited a pagoda and walked around the lake shore, we marvelled at the large statue of the King and the French post office was fairly impressive. We strolled down to look at the opera house and then rejoined the lake returning after a couple of hours wandering back to the old quarter, where we had lunch.
In the afternoon we went off in search of the citadel, possibly a mile away from our hotel, although we were clearly arrived in the right area we couldn't find it.
Eventually we found the war museum which housed part of it, but in a Vietnamese way they refuse to put up a sign in English outside the entrance so at first we walked right by it. However, having rectified our mistake we were soon climbing the old flag tower. The tour director made it quite clear that she was not in favour of visiting another war museum and so we wandered around the perimeter. At the back of the museum we could see the citadel with tourists in it so we watched them to get an idea of where the entrance was.
We walked around the corner and found our way in to what was a very interesting old palace complex. The tour director,being by this point a little tired, was not enamoured at first but as the size and complexity of the site grew on is we both agreed it had been worth the one pound entry fee.
There followed a long walk back to the hotel and having refreshed ourselves we went out for a very good evening meal in a nearby restaurant.
Hanoi is older and has has more character in its buildings than Ho Chi Minh, but it is also slightly more anarchic, the traffic obeys no rules that one can define and it appears to be everyone for themselves.
The shops are full of western copies of famous brands and yet here they do not hassle you to buy, it is all just a little more civilised. You can't walk on the pavements because they are parking areas for motor bikes, people still sit on small chairs and eat at pop up food venues on street corners. The old quarter is in itself really interesting, streets still corresponding to the guild system, one street for silver, another for silk, a third fro haberdashery, including in one shop ready woven labels for Zara, and other well known brands. Commercialism is alive and well in Vietnam.