We flew Laos Airlines into Hanoi on a small propeller plane, the guide books actually say not to use this airline cos of a poor safety record but adventure is my middle name. Hanoi is a crazy city, its sooooo busy, its full of mopeds, 3 million apparantly, and they drive in all directions and dont stop at red lights. The people park on the pavements, set up restaurants on the pavements and trees grow out of the pavements so we have no choice but to walk in the street and contest with all the mopeds and bikes and everyone it seems is trying to run me over! The ladies really do walk around with the conical hats on and the 2 baskets on a plank across their shoulders, i thought it was just for the movies or a 1920s thing. The rickshaw drivers are quite persistant and wave at you like they are your friend and then demand that you take a cycle rickshaw, also the people in the shops say 'you buy' or 'buy something' like a demand not a request to browse their shop. We saw a water puppet show which is where random wooden puppets are moved about in and ontop of water, its quite cool but 1hr is enough. We tried to see Ho Chi Mins mausoleum but its only open mon-thurs, 8-11am, we arrived at 11.30am on thursday so missed it alltogether, rubbish, i've never seen an embalmed body before. We went to the military history museum which was very much 'fight the capitalist americans' and 'heres the reamins of US planes that hero vietcong shot from the sky'. We escaped manic Hanoi and went on a 2day/1 night trip to Ha Long Bay which is a world heritage site. It was very beautiful and we had great weather but it was soooo crowded with tourists and boats....and this was the quiet season! We stopped in at a cave (which had a big rock formation shaped like a piel), visited some floating villages and went for a kayak which was fun, but the evening bought a horror not often witnessed.....karaoke. I didnt sing but Layne did and his singing is soooo terrible it makes me cringe, tho he sounded ok on the boat! The next day we just cruised around the bay but the weather was bad so we stayed indoors and played cards. Caught the overnight train to Hue at 7pm, much better than the Indian Trains!