First impressions of Vietnam are of when we are just landing in Hanoi Airport. The airport is a good 28km out of the city and as we come in to land, it looks very rural, there seems to be some major roads in the process of being build, with half tarmac areas, parts of bridges and rubble everywhere. The airport is the largest in the Northern Vietnam so it's of a good international standard and feels very much like any other airport just with a lack of people. Getting through immigration and baggage claim is surprisingly fast, I walk out the door find the minibuses, hop straight on and off we go into the city centre. There is a guy on the bus who speaks good English tells me that he knows where my hostel is and that its walking distance of the bus stop. Great, things in Vietnam are looking up. Well… we start walking, then he decides actually it a bit of a distance so lets get a taxi, we get a taxi I get my bearing from the map and know where we are heading. I find the road and he says no and we drive past. A while later we arrive at another hostel of the same name and they say, 'no not here'. So we then head back to where I saw the first time. So this long taxi adventure then costs me more that the price it would have done from the airport, totally scammed!!! Nevermind, I will later find others more scammed than me. The hostel I am staying is seems great, the staff are friendly, I meet some great other people, and with free beer from 6-7pm. What more can you ask for?

The next day I head off with my new Belgium friend Florence, to the Women's Museum. It is a brilliant museum all about women in Vietnam, their role in society, their role during the war and their outfits through the years. I had a pretty much non existent knowledge of the Vietnam War before coming here and this has only slightly improved since, but I had not throught that women would have played such a large role in not just the war effort but also the Guerrilla fighting. The afternoon is spent warming up after the freezing museum in a coffee shop, followed by stopping by the Cathedral and exploring more of the city. In the evening most of the backpackers in the hostel head to the rooftop bar for the free beers, a chat and then off out for some street food together.

For my last full day in Hanoi before heading off to Halong Bay, I meet up with Sarah again, our 5th country together in a year. We visit the Ho Chi Mihn Mausoleum and museum. It is a very strange place to visit, once you eventually find the right place to join the queue after being directed by lots of army soldiers around what feels like a whole circuit of the area. You are then filed into lines and walked in groups through various courtyards to the mausoleum itself. Here there are more soldiers, it has quite a serious feel to the whole place and you are then silently led into the room, and walk around a path on 3 sides of the body and then out the other side. It is quite a surreal idea, being paraded around him, especially as the man actually wanted to be cremated. The afternoon was spent shopping for a new phone and camera after Sarah's was stolen a few days before. I wonder where we will meet up again next.