We had an early start again this morning, 5.00am alarm to catch a 7.00am plane to Hanoi, Vietnam. Luckily we stayed in the hotel attached to the airport so once we checked out we were ten minutes away from check in. Once through all the security etc we had about a half hour wait before boarding the plane. The journey was just over an hour. When we got to Vietnam the queues for the passport control were pretty big but this was the longest wait we had and we got yet another stamp in our passports, they're looking very colourful now! The guy 'helping' at passport control, I guess he was a policeman was loving the power he had, people went to ask him questions and he just shouted Vietnamese at thm and pointed to the back of the queue, nice!! Once we picked up our bags we had to then work out how to get a taxi, a lady from a travel place offered one but it was very expensive, then a bloke walking through the airport asked if we wanted a taxi, it was half the price of the other, so we went for it. He took us upstairs, then through some crowd and eventually out to the taxi rank where we waited while he was on his mobile. It was taking some time so James asked how long it would be because we could get another taxi but it came two minutes later. It wasn't a marked taxi, there were loads of marked cars around us. We made sure the bloke driving knew how much we had agreed with the bloke from inside then off we went. About 10 minutes down the road he pulled in close to a car wash and asked us to wait for two minutes. This was a little strange, it was more like five to ten minutes when he came running back apologising, we were starting to worry this was a little strange but James checked on google maps and he was heading in the right direction so that made it a little easier! The journey was an hour long which included the taxi driver treating us to some Backstreet boys and Spice girls on the journey!! We had read about taxi drivers working for hotels and taking you to their friends hotel even if you have asked for somewhere else so we were ready for this to take a little longer. As predicted this happened, he pulled up infront of a hotel and said this is it, then someone who worked in the hotel opened the car door and welcomed us but both James and I sat still and said no and repeated Holiday Diamond hotel to him. The guy from the hotel shut the car door muttered something it Vietnamese and the driver set off again, within five minutes we arrived at our hotel. James had looked up on the internet last night what the front of the hotel looked like so that we knew it was the right one. Once inside we got welcome drinks and managed to get checked in early which was great. We chilled for a little then decided to go out and explore and find something to eat. The girl at the reception gave us a map and told us somewhere nice to eat. So we set off out of the hotel, the streets are crazy busy with shops filled to the brim with stock and cardboard boxes, the pavements have bikes and scooters parked on every bit of them and the roads are deadly if crossed incorrectly! We walked for a while just up and down the streets taking it all in we found Hoan Kiem lake where they do water puppetry so that's definitely on the list of to do's. We had something to eat and then wanted to make our way back to the hotel. We passed all sorts of sights, a number of dead chickens strapped to bikes, a lady selling duck eggs with the duck who produced them in the basket too (live) and a whole fried chicken (including head)! We walked into what looked like a market, neither of us could take our eyes off the place, there was so much merchandise everywhere and no-one seemed to be buying it, it was just being arranged in their little section. The streets all look very similar but they tend to have the same sort of shops on the same street for example all the DIY shops are together on the same street and then this gives it the street name. So you just have to work out what you have on yours, ours was drinks and snacks, so we got some supplies for later on and went back to the hotel. After getting back our early morning caught up on us and we had a nap, then decided we would watch a film later. James had a bath in the smallest bath i've ever seen, I think its going to be small on me too! We got a knock at the door and they brought us complimentary fruit, two mangoes and a knife to cut them with, great, that was tea sorted for this evening!