The train from Nanning arrived in Hanoi at 4am, but we were a little confused about which train station we'd actually pulled into. Unbeknownst to us Hanoi has two stations and we were at the one that is 4km out of town and which we didn't even know existed! We checked our map, our compass and the street names (none of which helped as the station wasn't on our map) and decided to set off walking (our hostel was 500m way or so we thought) as we assumed that the city centre had to be within walking distance. After a mile we thought that we must ask someone, but as the streets were virtually deserted at that time of the morning (save for some enormous rats the size of cats) Gemma had to go into a hotel to find out where we were. The very nice people in the hotel advised us of the second train station and put us back on the straight and narrow. A little way further along there was a mile-long traffic bridge and after crossing that we were in the city centre and near our hostel.

We stayed at the lively and friendly Hanoi Backpackers which is specifically there to cater for the many backpackers like us travelling through Vietnam, whether from north to south or vice versa, there being no east to west! We are trying to be careful with money so we were stuck in a small 10-man dormitory, which was ok, but hardly conducive to sleeping.

So far we had travelled through India during Christmas and China through Spring Festival and it came as little surprise to us that we had arrived in Vietnam during the Tet Festival. How is your luck? It was becoming tiresome travelling through countries during large festivals, especially when some of the attractions are closed for the holidays. Gripe about festivals over, we were lucky that the city and especially the lake had been beautifully decorated for the Tet Festival.

Our sightseeing in Hanoi mostly revolved around Vietnam's modern history from its struggle against French colonial rule, the rise of communism and the war with the United States. We visited the Hanoi Hilton (the jail for US airmen), the military museum, Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, Ho Chi Minh's museum and the B52 memorial. Vietnam is a largely Buddhist country and we also visited lots of temples, although because of the Tet Festival they were chock-a-block.

The nightlife in Hanoi was pretty kicking; we found some great places to eat and went on a pub crawl organized by the hostel. It was a great night getting very drunk with Eric and Michael and some random drunken girl from Watford. After many local vodkas, predominantly flavoured, we took our first motorcycle taxi rides home at crazy o' clock.

In China and to a slightly lesser extent India, we found that as backpackers, we were a novelty to many of the local people. Here in Vietnam we found that things geared up for backpackers which made life much easier and we were happy to be a well-trodden path, although maybe this makes things a little less authentic.