Hanoi in a sentence:
Lawless roads filled with screaming scooters.

Thurs 30th Oct

Left Aoi Garden Homes today at 19:30pm for our overnight bus, feeling quite sad to leave such a great hostel and Chiang Mai. We really got to know our way around the place which is great because there wasn't really any need to carry a map around with us. Our transfer picked us up from our hostel and took over two hours to get to the bus station which was supposed to leave at 9pm! We spent most of our time driving around, going past the same 2 hotels 6 times!! Enough about that anyway.

Luckily the bus was still there for us and we managed to get some seats next to each other. Now after experiencing the overnight bus, I can now tell you that it sucked compared to the overnight train, even though we did have aircon, wifi and it was quicker. I didn't manage to get any sleep at all (although Emily did manage to grab a few hours). Seats were too narrow, didn't recline enough and I sat next to the only person on this damn bus that wanted his reading light on!

Arrived to Bangkok and was immediately harassed by 20+ taxi drivers, one of them even standing on the bus making it difficult to get off! Yup, we were definitely back in Bangkok! Luckily I done my home work and every single one of them had massively over inflated their prices. So we walked down a couple streets and managed to find a legit taxi and made our way to the airport, realising that I had left my watch on the bus! Well done me! Putting that one down to being tired! We arrived to the airport around 08:00, baring in mind our plane didn't depart until 16:10! We were tired, we had our backpacks and already got the Bangkok experience, once was enough thanks. This was a great opportunity to watch a few episodes of Breaking Bad though.

The plane journey with Vietjet, besides being as cold as Antarctica, was decent. Our transfer was there waiting for us and took us to the hotel. Now we thought Thailand was full of crazy drivers, but nothing compares to Hanoi!! The roads are basically lawless and are sheer chaos and virtually every vehicle on the road is a scooter! For example, no one waits at junctions! You just drive through the cross roads weaving your way through the mass of humming scooters. People are driving on the wrong side of the road, the 'footpath' is used as parking for the scooters and you find yourself walking on the road amongst this madness. Crossing the road is not for the faint hearted either. The traffic is constant and if you want to cross you have no choice but to risk your life and just walk into the middle of the road amongst it all.

Got to our hotel, and it was just the most awful place we have ever been! It was sooo damp that the bed felt wet! Just what you need after not sleeping for however many hours. Anyway, after doing some sulking we ventured out in search of some food which turns out to be more expensive than Thailand! Everywhere looked dirty, we didn't want to get lost and ended up doing a circle and eating at a place across the road from the hotel. Today was the firstime we've really been homesick since leaving the UK, and decided to cheat and have a pizza each instead of rice or noodles! Damn it tasted so good.

Went back to the hotel, got into our sleeping bag liners and went to go to sleep. We had left the air con on while we were out to try and dehumidify the room, but was way too cold. Went to turn it up but just to add one more insult to our crappy couple days, the remote broke! Wonderful, so we ended up sleeping with our hoodies, hoods up and still freezing!

Fri 31st Oct

Despite the cold night we both managed to grab some sleep ready to explore Hanoi throughout the day and see what it has to offer. However, there was no water - not even cold, you turned the tap and nothing came out! We went to complain and they said it will be fixed within half an hr so we grabbed our free breakfast in the mean time - which to be fair was fairly decent. Still no water we decided to just live like travellers and venture out into the madness!

Literally 4 doors down we found a nice hotel and decided to pop in to see how much their rooms were and whether they did a tour to Halong Bay. We managed to grab a dorm room (first dorm we have stayed in) consisting of 21 beds, luckily only 2 other people were booked in otherwise we would of passed! We got talking to the hotel customer care manager - Mr Sun, this guy was an absolute legend! So nice, so helpful and very honest. We discussed tours to Halong Bay, with another couple from London listening in (Caroline and James) as they were looking to head that way too. After discussing our options we decided to have a think about the tour throughout the day - with the other couple on board we spent the day exploring the Old Quarter of Hanoi altogether. Visiting the Hao Lo Prison Museum - nicknamed 'Hanoi Hilton' by the US POWs. This was very educational and gave us an insight into the Vietnamese struggle for independence from France and how prisoners both US and Vietnamese lived - with the US having a much better life in prison compared to the Vietnamese. After working up an appetite we walked around looking for a local restaurant to grab some food - of course this involved more noodles.

Spent the afternoon walking around the Hoan Kiem Lake, and Ngoc Son Temple occupying an island in the Notherb part of the lake - also home of the remains of a Giant Golden Tortoise from the mid-15th Century. After a lot of walking around in the heat we thought we deserved a treat - ice cream for the girls and of corse beer for the guys.

Went back to the hostel for a couple of hours to finally have a shower and get ready for tonight - Halloween!! Despite no fancy dress we headed out with Mr Sun who took us on a mini bar crawl around some of the best bars in the centre of Hanoi. Stopping off for some street food and finding some locally brewed beer made from rice for only 5,000 VND = est.14p!! Safe to say the guys were very happy! After one or 10 too many rice beers and plenty of bars later we decided to head home - with the majority of bars closing and kicking everyone out anyway.

Sat 1st Nov

After a rather late night we decided to have a fairly relaxing day. Having decided we are making our own way to Cat Ba Island rather than booking a tour around Halong Bay we needed to purchase our bus tickets for the following morning. Unfortunately the bus station Mr Sun was going to get our tickets from closes early on Saturday, so me and Curtis jumped into a taxi to a bus station the other side of town to grab the tickets! Luckily there were still some seats left.

From the bus station we thought it would be nice to walk back into the centre of Hanoi 3km+ in the heat, with a vague idea of where we were going and no map! We did however enjoy roaming the streets of Hanoi and finding the cultural backstreets on our venture back, which surprisingly wasn't as painful as we once thought. We grabbed some fresh baguette sandwiches from a street vendor and ate by the lake, I also enjoyed a Thai Green Iced Tea - this was actually very green, but it wasn't too bad although very sweet - not sure I will purchase it again.

In the afternoon we met up with Caroline and James and walked around the markets. With Curtis making his first purchase of the whole trip - some prescription Ray Ban sunglasses (SAME same, but different) for an amazing £6. We were both surprised that they actually worked, making Curts live easier as he can now see in the day without having to choose between not being able to see or being blinded by the sun! The lady we bought the glasses off recommended a nice restaurant for us to grab some good food - this did involve more rice! Although it did give us the energy to spend a few hours wandering around the numerous stalls of the night market, easily could of spent longer roaming the streets to admire the local crafts.

Our hotel had a promotional evening on, offering free beer from 9pm, so of course we ventured back so Curt could grab a few freebies! Quite a few of the guests were there and we got talking to quite a few people from across the globe sharing our travelling tales. Once the beer had ran out we decided to go out for a few more drinks with everyone to the famous beer corner in Hanoi - consisting of a cross road with specialised rice beer bars on each corner and everyone sitting at miniature table and chairs in the street! A great atmosphere and a chance to mingle with a few of the locals.

Unfortunately we had to retire early due to our 6oclock start in the morning for the bus to Cat Ba Islands, with the others we were out with last night rocking up as we were eating breakfast, gutted that we missed such a good night but very excited for Cat Ba Island.

C & E x