A bus, a boat, another bus, then a taxi later we arrived in the capital, from Cat Ba Island. We travelled with Alex and Annika, who had wisely pre-booked accommodation on a busy weekend in Hanoi. Us on the other hand, decided to risk it - to try and get a good deal on the door, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake.
After two hours of wandering around Hanoi, visiting many hotels, which were either full, or charging way too much, we found a room in a hostel called 'Golden Time Hostel 2', for what seemed like a fair amount of money, compared with what we had spent elsewhere. It was far from the best place we've stayed in, but we were desperate, and to be fair it was clean and comfortable. So after a quick freshen up, and 'Banh Mi', we went to venture around the streets of Hanoi.
We stayed central in the 'Old Quarter' of the city. It reminded us a lot of Hoi An, with its narrow streets and yellow buildings. But that's where the similarities ended. Unlike Hoi An, it was much more chaotic, and crossing the road was as suicidal as Saigon, if not worse! The North is even more populated with motorbikes and scooters. With a lot of bicycles, taxis, and cyclos (a bike with a pram on the front) too. The Old Quarter also features lots of cafes, tour offices and little shops filled with the usual souvenirs, to knock off North Face jackets and sacks of coffee beans.
Later that evening we met back up with Alex and Annika for some dinner, and a look around the vast weekend night market, at just over 1km up and back, it wasn't a quick browse!

The next day we found ourselves some much nicer accommodation at a similar price (still in the Old Quarter). After the usual check in the Lonely Planet, and browse on TripAdvisor, we decided to go and visit the 'Women's Museum'.
The Women's Museum helped us understand the different Vietnamese tribes, the ways they live, and marriage ceremonies - one tribe even piggybacks the bride into the grooms family home. It also made us aware of the huge involvement, and contribution Vietnamese women made during the wars. Women soldiers mostly worked in medical care and communications. In the South, women accounted for 40% of the guerrilla and militia forces. In the north, women joined the 'Three Responsibilities' Movement created by the VWU (Vietnam Women's Union), this focused on: production, combat and family, to turn the North into a strong support base able to help the South. Military forces and militias in the North brought down 4,181 planes. The female militia groups shot down 28 planes out of these planes! But they were not only fighting, they were also farming and feeding the army. We saw pictures showing women in rice paddies with machine guns slung over their shoulders. We could've spent a whole day at the museum, but there's only so much information one can absorb!
A few roads down from the museum, we grabbed lunch from a lady selling noodle soup from the baskets suspended from her carrying pole. After learning about the ladies on the streets in the museum we felt empathetic, and after finishing our lunch we gave her an unexpected/un-required tip. From what we'd learnt, it should've been enough for a bed for the night. She was hugely grateful and grinning from ear to ear, we walked away with the same smile across our faces.
On our way back to the hotel, via the train station (purchased tickets to Sapa), we found a quirky little coffee shop called 'The Lighthouse'. We went for the recommended 'siphon coffee', apparently its origin from Spain. The beaker, flask and burner, made it look like some sort of science experiment, or crystal meth factory (something from 'Breaking Bad' springs to mind). After about 10 minutes our coffee was ready to drink. It seemed like hard work, but it tasted good, although Amelia and I both agreed that we preferred the 10,000 Dong coffee from the street instead, cheap tastes!
We booked on to a food tour later that day, and at 400,000 Dong (£13) per person it wasn't cheap (relatively speaking), but we had heard from Jay and Charlie, who had lived here for six months, that it was a must do.
We started the tour at around 5pm. There were six of us; two from Sydney, and two from Perth - the commonwealth gang. Our guide was a very bubbly Vietnamese lady called Cherry. The first out of nine stops was for 'Bun Cha' - delicious bbq'd pork in a garlicky broth, served with greens and rice noodles - a great start to the tour!
Our next destination was just around the corner for 'Nom Thit Bo Kho' - papaya salad, with plenty of chilli and thinly sliced dried beef - again very good! We also got to try a pork and prawn dumpling - good flavour but a bit rubbery!
Next up, I think most people's least favourite, 'Mien Luon Nuoc' - eel with noodles and broth - fishy, a bit chewy and very salty. Most of the group struggled to stomach it, but I thought it was quite nice, so polished off mine, and most of the others too! Our guide then got us some 'Bo Bia' from a random man on a bicycle. It was dried sugar cane, shredded coconut and sesame seeds, in a wheat flour wrap - very sweet, but for most of the group it was a welcomed taste after the eel.
After another short walk around the streets of the Old Quarter, we reached another street food vendor selling 'Nem Cua Be' - Crab Meat Spring rolls; 'Banh ran Thịt' - Salty donut, made from sticky rice flour and mince pork; 'Banh Goi' - Pillow cake, made using wheat flour, mince pork and vegetables. All of these were great, my favourite were the crab spring rolls. Amelia's was the pillow cake, described by her as a Cornish pasty. We were all very full by this point, but we had one savoury dish left, 'Bun Bo Nam Bo' - Rice noodles in a small soya sauce broth, served with dried beef. Apparently this dish is more common in the southern part of Vietnam. Finally we'd finished.... the savoury food.
Next up we went to a street full of shops and stalls all selling the same thing fruit and yoghurt, or rice pudding. I had the black rice pudding, not much different to rice pudding we have back home, just a lot stickier. Amelia had a bowl of fruit with jelly, yoghurt, and coffee beans, which when bitten into, added a nice burst of flavour. Streets with shops and stalls all selling the same thing is quite a common theme across Vietnam, and it's especially prevalent in Hanoi. We found out that during the 13th century the Old Quarter streets were named after the goods sold there. There were originally 38 streets named after their trades, but now the Old Quarter comprises around 50 streets. Although many of them have now mixed trades, there's enough of the old to give you a fascinating insight into old Vietnam.
Because of our constant chatting, we were a bit behind schedule - the tour was meant to last three hours, we were now at around four.
Cherry didn't seem bothered in the slightest, and she now felt more like a friend to us.
Our next stop was to a crossroads selling fresh beer (no preservatives) for 3000 Dong, it was called Bia Hoi corner. A place where locals and backpackers sit on little wooden or plastic stalls, drinking beer, eating snacks, talking and watching the world go by. We had one beer each, and Cherry also insisted on getting us more food - some battered pork bites, and a few popadom type snacks covered in sesame seeds, to dip in a hot chilli sauce.
To finish the tour we were taken to a coffee shop, but not for your normal regular coffee. We were introduced to 'Trung Cafe' which translates to egg coffee. It is quite possibly the best coffee we've ever had, it's made using the egg yoke (apparently whisked for 30 minutes). It was only a small cup, and perhaps for a good reason, but it was amazing, the perfect way to end a brilliant tour. It was worth every Dong!
Our friends Gary and Lynzie had arrived in Hanoi earlier that day, so we arranged to meet them with Alex and Annika. We recommended Bia Hoi corner, for the cheap beers and lively atmosphere. So for a few hours we sat, chatted about our recent travels and made our way through a fair amount of beer. It was the last chance to see each other, before we all went our separate ways. Gary and Lynzie off to Thailand, Alex and Annika went off to Burma. At the end of our evening we said our fairwells. We made brilliant friends with these guys, and we hope that we can all meet again someday in the future.

The next day we went for a stroll to look at the market and onto the west lake area to see a pagoda called 'Tran Quoc'. On our way to the Pagoda we walked past old men fishing legally, or illegally in the lake. Most just had a bamboo rod together with a hand reel. We had to be careful walking past them as they were whipping the rods back and forward, extremely fast and aggressively - not a technique I've seen before. I'm not sure if they were trying to catch fish or tourists! Unfortunately the pagoda was shut, so we took some nice pictures from the outside. Whilst snapping away, we saw locals selling souvenirs and cold drinks, we also noticed they had a quite a few clear plastic containers. Inside the containers were small live turtles, and some larger ones outside, attached to string leads. Apparently these turtles are not native to the waters, and need to be removed to protect the native turtles and ecosystem. I'm not sure how true this is, but I was told by a student we met the following day.
By this point our feet and legs were tiring, so we decided to have our first cyclo experience. We had avoided them up until now, as we'd heard bad things about cyclo drivers ripping people off, and beating those that didn't cough up their extortionate cost! So we picked the friendliest looking driver, and agreed the cost of our destination before setting off.
Our destination was the hidden away 'B-52 memorial'. Not many tourists find it, and I'm not surprised. It was tucked away in amongst a small rundown neighbourhood. Inside the lake is the remnants of an old American B52 bomber, which was shot down during the 1972 Christmas bombing raids.
For lunch we went to the highly recommended (again by Jay and Charlie) 'chicken street', actual name is Ly Van Phuc. The chicken was perfectly bbq'd, succulent, juicy and reminded us both of Nandos! We met back up with Cherry in the afternoon, who wanted to introduce me to an unusual bite to eat - Trung Vit Lon (aka duck foetus). It's a daily snack for residents of Hanoi, usually eaten for elevenses. I'd been wanting to try it for a while. For some reason things like this intrigue me. My thought is why not try something that you might discover to be the best thing you've ever tasted. Cherry hunted down one of the many ladies, who cook and carry these around on their carrying poles. It came in a small bowl with some broth, julienned ginger and a few basil leaves. Cherry led the way, showing me each step of the process. First the yellow sections, as you imagine it tasted like yoke, but a bit meatier. Then the white, which contains the foetus. You're supposed to eat this section without pulling it apart, but my curiosity led me to dissect this section and see the foetus (even Cherry turned up her nose at this point). I ate this part expecting to taste feathers, bones and maybe even the crunch of a beak, but no, it was all soft just like eating a hard boiled egg. I would eat it again. The only slightly tough part was a half developed wing.
In the evening we watched the 'water puppet' show. A famous and long standing show in Vietnam. It was all in Vietnamese, but we enjoyed it and it was probably made all the more funny because of this.
One of the dishes we had been meaning to try throughout our time in Vietnam was their popular hotpot. So we found a street with lots of them, and went for the beef option. We sat down by a plastic table with a gas stove on top (this is Vietnam). And received a bowl of broth, a basket of vegetables, herbs, noodles, and the beef to add and cook all at your own pace.

We contacted a tour company called Hanoikids (rated #1 on TripAdvisor) offering free tours for English speaking tourists. Hanoi is full of plenty of students wanting to expand their English skills. Approximately 700 students applied this year and just 50 of them were chosen - having gone through three rounds of exams and interviews!
Normally they have a fairly long waiting list, so contacting them two days before we weren't expecting to receive good news, but we thought it was worth a quick email. We received a reply within hours, offering a half day tour starting at 9am on our last day in Hanoi, perfect.
Our guides were T.C - a veteran at Hanoikids and in his final year at uni. And Ly (pronounced Lee) was a newbie, just in her first year.
We took a taxi to the Ho Chi Minh Complex. The grounds were heavily guarded, we even had to go through an airport style security checkpoint, at which point they noticed my penknife in my daybag. I was expecting to get tackled to the floor the way they shouted knife as it went through the scanner! But I was just asked to hand it in, and collect it when leaving.
We knew from reading the lonely planet we would be seeing the late Ho Chi Minh's house, cars and grounds etc. What we weren't expecting to see was Ho Chi Minh himself! He was displayed in a huge glass display cabinet, in a thoroughly air conditioned building, surrounded by yet more guards. It was a weird experience seeing a dead man preserved for over 45 years.
After looking around the rest of the complex we headed to the temple of literature called Van Mieu. I must admit I didn't learn a lot about either the Ho Chi Minh Complex or Van Mieu. It didn't bother me though, as I found it fascinating getting to know and learn about the lives of T.C and Ly. We were non-stop chatting with the both of them. We even went to a coffee shop called Cong afterwards. We thought the Trung Cafe was amazing, which it was, but we found a new favourite. Coconut coffee! If I can reproduce this coffee back home, I think I'll be on to a winner! Later that day, we tried coconut jelly which was also superb.
We took a stroll around the Botanical gardens (even having to pay to enter!), then walked back to the city later in the afternoon to try egg hot chocolate and egg beer. We both agreed that perhaps sticking to the egg coffee was best. We returned to one of the street food restaurants from the food tour for dinner, as the Bun Cha dish was one of our favourites.
I really didn't want to leave Hanoi, the people, the food, the city were unforgettable. But later that day we had to board our first train in South East Asia..... to Sapa