After mastering the art of 'communication-without-words' in China, we thought we would be ready for anything that the relatively well-travelled southern neighbour, Vietnam, had to offer. We were wrong! Although communication was easier, Hanoi managed to make China seemed like a very well-behaved senior citizen.

After we were safely dropped at the front door of our hostel, it took us a while to work up the guts to venture out into the street. We were staying in the old town district, which doesn't seem to have changed in a few hundred years, besides the introduction of motorbikes... Very narrow roads coupled with a few million motorbikes and honking horns makes it very difficult to walk down the street, let alone cross it. With breaks in traffic rare, the general rule was to just pick a line, keep a steady pace and let the traffic zig-zag around you!

We were also warned several times about bag snatchers. At first this was all a bit daunting, however after a couple of good meals and some solid wandering, it didn't seem so bad and we started to make friends with this Nations-capital.

We soon learnt that you have to barter for absolutely everything, from chopsticks to laptops, and what you buy is never as good as you hope it might be. As it happens we have stories about both chopsticks and laptops...

After reading about how these countries chew through millions of trees worth of disposable chopsticks every year, we decided to reduce our footprint and buy our own. Our next meal of traditional Vietnamese pho (noodle soup) proved too tough for Jess's pair and they snapped! Our footprint had increases by one!

Slightly more frustrating was our attempt to buy a small laptop. Mainly to reduce photo-uploading time and manage Jess's iPod we thought it a worthy investment. We haggled and compared prices and eventually struck a good deal on a little Samsung, only to realise when we got back to the hostel that they had installed an unregistered version of Windows. This meant that we'd have to pay another $100 or more when it expires next month. Thankfully we took it back and they amended the problem with no more than a cheeky grin.. sneaky little b*****s.

We can't say we did much sightseeing in the six days we spent in Hanoi. Just wandering through the narrow streets was stimulating enough. We did on one occasion plan to visit the Ho Chi Minh Museum. We followed the stream of tourists to where we thought the museum was and found ourselves herded towards a large garden. This seemed like the thing to do and we were curious, so we merged into a single file and walked towards a big concrete structure, with soldiers watching us suspiciously the whole time. The atmosphere seemed too solemn for a museum. This atmosphere was explained when we followed the procession up some stairs and came face to face with the dead body of Uncle Ho himself, perfectly preserved under a glass hood. We had just entered the mausoleum of former leader Ho Chi Minh or, more accurately, a giant grave!

An interesting story we came across was that of Kim Qui, the Golden Turtle God. The legends say that long ago Emperor Le Loi was paddling across a lake in Hanoi, when a giant turtle appeared from the watery depths and stole a magical sword. The sword was returned to Kim Qui, its rightful owner...

More recently one of these 'mythical' creatures was found dead and floating in Hoan Kiem Lake! It was stuffed and put on display in Ngoc Son Temple. Since then a number of scientists have been involved in the difficult task of conserving the beautiful giant soft-shelled turtle.

We are now looking forward to a few relaxing days in Halong Bay!