Goooooood morning Vietnammmmm!!!

I think it is practically the law that we start our first Nam blog with that line and given that this is a commie country who are we not to toe the line.

Vietnam is the start of our three and a half month tour of South East Asia which will go on to take in such hot spots as Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Bali before we head back to England. It was a wrench to leave New Zealand (not that we had much choice really given that our flights were booked), because we had both had a great time but because I suppose New Zealand had represented the "easy" part of our travels with the van and people speaking English (or close enough) and now it was public transport and traveling with the peasants.

So anyway we arrive at Hanoi airport after about 17 hrs of flights and stopover and the first reaction has to be "culture shock". We'd booked an airport pick up to take us to the hotel for the princely sum of $6 and thankfully they were there waiting for us. The sign our driver held out had my name on it and another one, but this didn't seem to bother the guy as he didn't make any pretence of waiting for anyone else so I don't know if we left some poor people in the airport or not. Not our problem really.

The drive from the airport to the hotel was definately an eyeopener and an instant reminder that we were most definately not in New Zealand now. For anyone considering driving in Vietnam my advise is don't unless you are a complete nutter in which case you'll probably fit right in! The drivers use their horns more often than they use their brakes, the main rule of the road seems to be "point your vehicle in the direction you want to be going and honk your horn like like crazy to make sure everyone else knows about it". Amazingly it seems to work in that we are yet to see any crashes but it's a miracle that they don't occur all the time. Imagine watching a massive flock of birds flying randomly in the sky, it's amazing that they don't hit eachother. That's what it's like but on the ground. Mopeds laden with as many as five people pull out into traffic without looking; huge trucks veer alarmingly onto the wrong side of the road facing down oncoming traffic in a constant game of chicken and swing back at the last minute.

Needless to say that Rhiannon sat rigid and unspeaking in her seat as our taxi barrelled along,straddling the two lanes of traffic whilst chatting animatedly on his mobile; worryingly he kept one hand always on the handbrake as though he didn't trust his footbrake to work in time. Maybe the thought even flitted through Rhiannon's mind that perhaps old Stuart wasn't such a bad driver after all. Maybe.

Obviously we arrived safely at our hotel. The Ritz Hotel no less, although at $25 a night it wasn't quite like it's London namesake. However it was rated number one on our internet travel bible (tripadvisor.com) and in our opinion deservedly so with great staff who went massively out of their way to help us throughout our stay and if you ever stay in Hanoi then we'd both recommend it. Provided that is you don't want to sleep before 11.30 as a nearby nightclub will put a stop to that kind of party pooping attitude.

The first thing you notice in Hanoi is the traffic. There is loads of it, mainly mopeds humming along and provided a constant background noise from about 5am to 11pm every day. They wake up early in Vietnam and they stay up late, i've no idea how they do it but these guys put in some hours. For the traveller like us it means earplugs, or just getting on with it and we tried both. With the traffic so dense it makes crossing the road a test of will as if you wait for a gap you'll be there for days, there is no such thing as a pedestrian crossing and even red lights seem to be treated by the drivers as for guidence purposes only. No, the only way is to step off the pavement and slowly keep walking and just assume that the mopeds will see you and get out of the way. Hesitation is for the weak and the weak may find themselves ploughed down in the real life game of Frogger (or Horace goes Skiing if anyone recalls that).

It has to be said that Rhiannon took to this a lot better than me, probably buoyed up by the skydiving she would grab me by the hand and drag me across the road whilst I was still daydreaming. The traffic is supposedly worse in Saigon so we'll look forward top that, although to be honest you get used to it. Look out for us sauntering across the M25 with our eyes closed when we get back.

That's it for Hanoi blog one, i'll split it into two to make it not so huge.