The plane ride from Vientiane to Hanoi was only an hour and fairly pleasant. On arrival in Vietnam we were charged a ridiculous amount to enter the country and have our visas stamped into our passports, but hey, we'd come all this way so who cares! After the mandatory map collecting, money drawing, toilet stopping (many times) and general sense of where we're trying to go, we jumped in a taxi and headed out into Hanoi. OMG.......

Earlier on in this blog I made it pretty clear that Bangkok was the craziest place we had ever been to. Well to put things into perspective-If Bangkok is the naughty schoolboy then Hanoi is the little s*** that stole Bangkok's lunchbox. The traffic is completely un-fathomable. They hoot for no reason and the scooters swarm around the cars like mobile beehives. It's yet another sensory overload which South East Asia dishes up with little effort.

The driver dropped us off just above the old quarter in Hannoi central and we were, of course greeted by a very friendly young man who insisted we look at his rooms. A couple of stairs later and we were in our room for the next two nights. It was fairly clean, had free wifi and a decent bathroom. After a tasty dinner of stir fried beef and crab with noodles we where done for the day.

The next day was when we discovered Hanoi for the beast it really is, but before the city shook us up we discovered a little beast right in the hotel lobby. Kate was still upstairs and I decided to come down earlier and have a word with the "travel guy" about some prices for Halong Bay. The conversation started with me telling him I would not be booking anything but that I just wanted his prices. After 20 minutes of him trying to sell us these deals, which we knew where dodgy, I simply said No and that's when Gollum was unleashed. He sneared at us cursing in Vietnamese and pulling horrible faces. At one point he started getting really full on and i got close to "letting the badger out to play" but sanity in those moments has to prevail as things can often get really ugly. However this didn't stop Gollum with his five centimetre long finger nail from cursing us and who knows what other members of our family. For all we know he could have dropped the old "your mother" somewhere in amongst it. We eventually left the hotel laughing and saying to each other "my precious" over and over.

Getting to the first intersection made me feel dizzy. A million motorbikes and cars all coming from different directions at a forty-five degree angle and not a traffic light for miles! How does this system work? I have no idea, but it does. I crabbed hold of Kate's hand and after having watched a few locals doing it, we just started walking. Bikes flying past our ankles, cars hooting up our backsides and locals looking at us with big smiles on their faces. This is prime time television for them! We very soon got the hang of things and walked down the crowded streets to the Hoan Kiem lake where we enjoyed two steaming hot bowls of chicken "pho" while looking out over the water. After lunch we visited the Women's museum as well as an old Cathedral which was built in the 18 hundreds and looks so out of place in amongst the chaos of Hanoi. We briefly went inside and the the quiet cool air which the massive stone walls provided was amazing. We sat in the church for about fifteen minutes just enjoying the relative silence. After the church we grabbed some baguettes filled with grilled pork and chilli sauce, then walked around for another two hours exploring the small alleys and bi-roads which make Hanoi so interesting. After having done a bit of walking we realised that our taxi driver had dropped us in completely the wrong place and the old quarter wasn't really were we where staying. We decided to hop onto one of the bicycle taxis and where peddled all the way through the old quarter ,crossing the manic intersections, right to the front door of Gollum's place. One thing stayed constant during the ride. He never stopped once. A quick bite to eat and the day was done! Hanoi really takes it out of you.

The next morning had an interesting start! We decided we would stay one more night at Gollum's place because the room was a good price and was fairly good value for money, however, Gollum had different plans for us. Upon requesting to stay for another night he abruptly said No and told us to pack our things and leave. He did however say that he had another hotel up the road and he would take us there! He was clearly still seething from us not having booked the Halong Bay trip through him. After packing our things we walked back down to the lobby but Gollum was nowhere to be found and all the staff in the hotel had "lost there tongues". Awkward moments passed and finally we were handed a piece of paper with half Vietnamese half English scribbled down to form some sort of directions. The woman then muttered "walk five minutes then turn right". She assured us Gollum would be waiting there for us. I don't know about all you people out there but "walk five minutes then turn right" is like saying to an American tourist who is lost in the Serengeti to walk five hours and then turn left at the green tree! Nonetheless we loaded up and went in search of a new hotel, irrespective of finding Gollum or not. A short walk down the road and we went inside what was to be the most talked about hotel of our trip thus far, The A25! The rooms were big, had free wifi, a minibar, clean bathrooms and a computer with a webcam?!? The webcam is what raised the first questions. After putting our stuff down we walked downstairs to pay and realised that one could in fact book these rooms for as little as two hours! Yip The A25 was that kind of place. I'm sure you get the picture. So without hanging around to chat we grabbed our day packs and hit the streets to look for some lunch. After a quick snack we were really keen to get our Halong Bay trip organised. The 'lonely planet' is riddled with stories of people getting ripped off by scams and below standard operations offering discounted tours onto Halong Bay. It's one of the highlights of Vietnam and we didn't want to go there and be disappointed. After a long discussion we decided to spend the extra money and book something really decent which is exactly what we did. Handspan tours for anybody who is planning to go to Halong Bay is well worth it!

After booking the trip we found a little lady on the side of the road, literally in the gutter, selling chicken pho. Served piping hot with fresh lime juice and chillies. Just delicious. We sat on two low chairs which is the norm around these parts and watched the swarms of motorbikes buzz past. After the pho we found a little bar selling Mochitos and playing really cool music. Once again we found ourselves sipping drinks and watching the constant flow of Hanoi inhabitants mission past. A long slow walk back to the A25, what would the night hold? The night was interesting. A constant opening and shutting of doors lasted way into the night, televisions blared, cigarette smoke leaked into every small crack in the room and Kate was convinced there was plenty of Audio!

The alarm went off at 06:30. I had just come back from my morning run of course, and we frantically packed our stuff, ran out the front door of the A25 and headed for the Handspan offices. The taxi driver dropped us in the wrong street so we spent the next 30 minutes completely lost. We nearly missed the transfer to Halong Bay, but where super excited to be visiting a World Heritage site and a "new seven natural wonder of the world". Same same but the A25 was very different.............