The 14-hour train journey from Hue to Hanoi passed pretty quickly as I ploughed through the snacks I'd bought from the supermarket in Hue - cheese and crackers, olives, cashew nuts and a half-bottle of Vietnam's finest red wine Vang Dalat.

We were staying in Hanoi's Old Town, which is a maze of little streets all crammed with identikit tiny shops and restaurants - I couldn't get my bearings in this place at all because every street looked the same to me (not helped by the fact there were five branches of our hotel that looked identical on the outside too!). We had a couple of great meals at the Little Hanoi restaurant and dessert from the bakery next door to it There are some cool bars in the Old Town, or, for a tenth of the price, I could have a beer from one of the many outlets that consist of plastic chairs on the street corners.

I found a beautiful spa and treated myself to a massage and pedicure, which provided a much-needed haven from the motorbikes, beeping and people hassling me to buy things at every turn.

Chris found his much sought-after 'weasel coffee' - made from coffee beans that had been eaten and excreted again by weasels! Apparently the weasels only choose the best quality beans!

We took a day-trip out of Hanoi to the canals of Tam Coc, billed as 'Halong Bay on land' due to the similar karst landscape. We were ferried along the shallow canal through the rice paddies in small rowing boats so we could relax in the sunshine and take in the scenery.

I didn't have enough time to visit the museums in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh Complex but I had a quick look in the Ngoc Son Temple in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake to see the giant tortoise (there's some mythology about a tortoise in the lake - this one is apparently a real one that's been preserved), it wasn't really worth the visit!

By the time I finished up in Hanoi I was glad to be leaving Vietnam - I was tired of being continually ripped off and nearly run over. Although Vietnam has some interesting history, compared to the other countries I've visited I don't rate the culture or food highly and, despite being very modern and built up, it is still lacking many creature comforts. The main issue was that I found many of the people - especially the hotel staff - at best unhelpful and at times downright rude. Outside of Saigon and Hanoi it's more pleasant and I would still recommend the other parts of the country that I've been to, maybe just give the two main cities a miss.