Gooood Moorrrnniinnnggg Vietnam!

It was most amusing waking myself up with the subject line today - it will be less amusing when I do it tomorrow and may start to be annoying when I do it the next day and the day after that (i didn't even like the movie, really) but today was a bit stressful.
WOke up quite early to a breakfast, which left a bit to be desired, coffee (probably nescafe) and morning bread (although I brought my own Vegemite which was good) and very strange tasting bananas (i seem to have lost my taste for the wonder fruit over here) - after that avoided numerous taxi drivers to walk myself to the Temple of Literature, absolutely underwhelming but also brilliant to have a temple devoted to something of worth rather than to a figment of the imagination or an overrated historical figure. Lots of touritsts but that was to be expected (i am not denying my own status over here by any means); after that little sojourn was off to see Ho Chi Minh (the overrattd historical figure) and it was HELL. The queue was literally miles long; I was told that it would only take about half an hour so I decided to wait. First I had to hand over my bag and then about 20m later I had to hand over my PDA, camera and phone (which doesn’t workP - they told us not to leave valuables in the bag which they were minding. THe queue moved rather swiftly but this was because the immaculately dressed guards and queue ladies were moving us along by glaring, shouting and shoving. I'm very happy to be moved along by an authority figure but I do not like to be pushed. Several times, my automatic reaction was almost to push them back when they prodded me. The heat was rather horiffic and it was a big relief to actuallyget into HCM's mausalleum, shoved around a bit by the gawping tourists and the soldiers themselves but it was nice to see the embalimg work - kind of dull but I didn't really expect much more. It was quite interesting listening to the american toursits behind me with their private guide who was reciting verbatim the Lonely Planet history of Ho Chi Minh and how he came to be embalmed in this place. Got out and had to endure more phsysical shoving before managing to retrieve my things (my phone had managed to be disassociated from my other possessions and so I had to argue with the dude to get it back) - finally left the area and had a long hard wander back to the hotel where I was told I was being moved to one of their sister hotels and I had to vacate the room. Where was it/ It was close. No, what's the address/ Just 5m away. What's the name? Very close. F**k it, fine, packed up and wandered down to the Spotted Cow around the lake to see what the hanoi hash house harriers run was going tobe like. I got there a bit early and met two americans, vietnam vets, who were nice enough but were doing a different kind of travelling to me, getting drunk, staying at the hilton, playing golf (and screwingaround with the local prostitutes ast my guess) - they bought me a coke.
There were a few people at the pub who were going to the run and I chatted with some of them. It was a 100,000D and it was going to be a 1hr bus ride out past the airport to the site - I had no other plans and needed the exercise so I accepted. i'd never heard about these groups until I read about them in Lonely Planet (and even then it was very brief) but apparently it's a world wide phenom for expats (and others) to get together regularly for a semi-orienteering run trough the town and follow it with some drinking. There were about 30 of us and we set off following markers and getting lost and finding new markers and carrying on. It was quite tiring but I certainly kicked those ex-pat's collective asses. Some of them were pretty good runners but most were there for the post run drinking - there were lots of silly drinking songs and some really obnoxious commentary from some of them. I have to say the British and American guys I met on the run were not the kind of people I would like to hang out with ordinarily but do think the other chapters of the the HHH might offer some opportunity for training in coming weeks.
Finally made it back to mguesthouse in order to be directed to my new residence and I was informed that I would not need to change hotels, merely rooms, and i've been given one that is just about exactly the same as my old one -a tlhough it doesn't have a window onto the street (and in Hanoi, that is a good thing).