Hi Everyone,

So we flew to Hanoi on the Friday. When we arrived, we were totally overwhelmed as the city is so busy and loud but in a totally different way to Bangkok. Due to the French influence there are loads of small cobbled streets and colonial buildings that could have easily been taken straight from Paris; it's just totally surreal! Josh had done a lot of reading on Vietnam, and in all the books the place to go was Hanoi Backpackers Hostel so we thought we would give it a go (up until that point we had stayed in hotels and guest houses that were all really nice). We went in and asked for a private room for two nights, when they said they didn't have any we decided to go for a dorm. The dorm was a really small room with three sets of bunk beds rammed into it. Also staying in the dorm was a French guy (who didn't put his top on the whole time he was there, and stared at BOTH Christina and Josh's chests when we spoke to him) and a girl (we can't remember either of their names!), there was also another couple who we can't tell you much about as they were sleeping the whole time. More on the hostel later…

We dropped our bags off and went for a few drinks in the bar at the hostel; Christina tried her first beer - mixed with LOTS of Sprite. The average price of a bottle of beer here is 20p so Josh is in his element. French guy and the girl also turned up at the bar, and we ended up going for food with the girl. We found a really busy Vietnamese place on a street corner, where there was a table filled with different kinds of raw food, from kebabs and squid to corn on the cob. We were handed a basket which we filled with food for the three of us which they cooked and brought over to where we were sitting (which was at a kiddies size table with miniature stools on the street corner). The food was delicious, fresh and only cost a couple of pounds each.

The traffic in Hanoi is crazy, for the first few days Christina had to hold Josh's hand whilst crossing the road like a small child would. You basically have to just step out into the traffic and walk slowly in a straight line across the road and all of the motorbikes drive around you.

The next day we went on a walking tour around Hanoi with a couple of guides from the hostel, which took us to see St Joseph's cathedral (could do with a good lick of paint) and Hoan Kiem lake, which is a big lake right in the centre of the city. We also tried some Hanoi ice cream (they seem to be obsessed with ice cream here). On the way the tour guide recommended a restaurant which specialised in Pho, which is noodles in a watery soup. We went to the restaurant that evening based on their recommendation. When we sat down, they brought out a plate of salad and a bug ran out of it, which in hindsight wasn't the best sign! The Pho was horrible and bland and no amount of soy sauce made it better! We then made our way to the night market by walking around the lake - there was a massive lightning storm as we walked so we got some great pics of the lake lit up, there were also bats everywhere which literally flew within centimetres of us. The market itself was rubbish, it was more like a car boot sale! On the way back we stopped at an outdoor café and had an ice cream which was rudely interrupted by a torrential downpour of rain. Luckily, the downpours only seem to last a maximum of half an hour so we went to another bar for a few more drinks and had a random game of Jenga.

There are several things that can be said about the hostel. Good points: you get the opportunity to meet people, it was clean, they had 2 for 1 drinks at the bar. That's enough positivity. Here's a list of things we HATED: no room to move - let alone pack your bag or get dressed, the general stench of stale alcohol when you wake up in the morning, having a shower and then having to put your clean clothes on standing in a puddle of water, not being able to control when you turn the lights on and off, snorers, noise, listening to other people go to the toilet, not being able to turn the light on when you wake up in the morning and having to put mascara on using a torch (Christina), having French guys constantly stare at your chest. But worst of all, Josh accidentally turning off the air conditioning when he was turning the lights off and not being able to turn it back on, resulting in an awful sweaty night's sleep (everyone woke up complaining so Josh just acted innocent and joined in complaining) . We made a speedy exit from the hostel and headed to Halong Bay.

We had booked a tour to Halong Bay, as everyone we spoke to said its more expensive and harder to do it yourself. We were picked up at 8am and had a 4 hour drive to Halong City which is the gateway to the bay. We really didn't know what to expect when we got there as we had only paid $100 each (about £64) for a night on a traditional junk boat, a night on a private island, food, kayaking, transport and a boat trip around the bay including stop offs at beaches and caves.

We got to the boat and straight away were served a delicious buffet lunch, this gave us a chance to meet some of the other 20 passengers, who were all very friendly and of a similar age to us and all also backpacking, apart from an Australian family who were also really friendly. As we sunbathed on the deck, we started to see more and more of the thousands of limestone towers jutting out of the sea which make up Halong Bay. It was truly beautiful and well worthy of being one of the seven natural wonders of the world. We also had the best weather of the whole trip, so it couldn't have been more perfect.

Later, we arrived at a cave which wasn't really that amazing (we'd seen better in Spain last year!), the best bit was when we got the Kayaks out and got a chance to explore around the islands ourselves, this was until we went behind a group of fishermen's floating houses and the water changed into more like sewage. We got back on the boat and went out into a more open stretch of water where we all jumped off the boat and went swimming in the warm water, this was until someone spotted a giant jelly fish and we all scrambled out! Josh bought some beers off a woman in a tiny dingy who pulled up along our boat flogging cheap food and drinks, this seemed like a great idea until we realised we got charged $1 for each drink that we didn't buy on-board (they've gota make money somehow we suppose). After another delicious meal we all went up to the top deck for a few beers, this turned into a bit of a session when the drinking games started and the ipods and guitars came out- great night!

The next day we went to Monkey Island, where we actually saw a monkey and got a photo of it, apparently they don't come out that often so we got lucky. The beach there was stunning and in conjunction with the turquoise blue sea it was possibly the most beautiful place we've ever been to or at least it was until we got to the next Island where we were going to spend the night. When we arrived, everyone's jaw dropped at the sheer beauty of the secluded bay, bungalows lined the white beach and the views couldn't have been better. We did some more kayaking to tiny secluded beaches that were totally deserted, Josh felt like a 21st century Robinson Crusoe (Christina doesn't know who he is). Later, after a BBQ, we played a few more drinking games and had another great night. The next day it was unfortunately time to leave paradise and head back to the mainland.

Upon getting back to Hanoi, we couldn't face another night in the hostel as we were both exhausted so we walked to the next hotel along. For more or less the same price as the hostel we got our own massive modern room with minibar, cable tv, air conditioning and funky bathroom. People must just automatically go to the hostel after reading about it in Lonely planet (like we did), they don't know what they're missing just next door! On the night, we treated ourselves to some western food in the form of a couple of pizzas in a local Italian restaurant, these cost more than the hotel room itself. Hanoi is an interesting place when it comes to the cost of things, food is more expensive than accommodation and water is more expensive that beer (work that out?) but in the end everything works out really cheap! The next day we had a day to kill before getting a bus so we went to the natural history museum, this was particularly uninteresting as all the descriptions of objects were in French, even if they were in English though, it was still mainly just old pots and lamps etc.

Overall Hanoi is an amazing city where French colonial architecture and laid back bars were a welcomed relief from the metropolis of Bangkok and the annoying tourist touts of Chang Mai.

Thanks for reading, Just got to Dong Hoi which is completely off the tourist trail but more on that next time.