Good morning Vietnam! We had the fastest flight ever (literally up and down in what seemed like 10 mins), We were on Air Asia which is translated as easyjet in Asia. Th plane wasn't full though so we had a full 3 seats to our selves just like a settee! We'd pre arranged a taxi at the airport as we'd read a few horros stories about dodgy taxi drivers, unfortunatley nobody had our name on the boards but we saw a 'TLAIR ROBINSON' so we guessed that there had been a bit of a miscommunication in our written email so David and Tlair got in the taxi.

We are staying in the old quarter of Hanoi and oh my god its absutley freezing!! We're in flip flops and t shirts, coming straight from sunny Thailand, shivering past people in hats, scarves and gloves!

The first thing you notice about the city is the traffic! Back in Thailand we had got used to traffic being gridlocked 90% of the time - here there are just waves and waves of motorbikes almst never stopping but filling the roads completley! As it literally never stops, crossing the road is a lot of fun. You have to kind of just slowly walk into it and across the road whilst the bikes swerve round you. It was scary at first but soon becomes quite good fun! The horns are going all the time as well and it soon gets quite annoying - it's just so bloody noisy!

We soon got a feel for the place though and though its quite annoying at times it really does feel like what you imagine asia to be, wooden pointy hats, womn selling fruoit from baskets being carried by long poles ( Claire got pounced on by one woman she rammed the hat on her head and stuck the pole on her shoulder. We kept on saying no but all she said was 'photo').

Planning ahead we booked our water puppet show and our trip round halong bay, We went our for first vietnames meal and we loved it! Just hope there wasn't any dog in it!