Hanoi: 3rd October - 5th October

We managed to get ourselves to a hostel however did not stay in the same one as Max, Linda & Nina as they only had mixed dorms available and we weren't in the mood for sharing a room with loads of people. However the hostel we did eventually manage to book was really lovely and, compared to the Hong Kong, the room was fit for royalty - we had a king sized bed and even a bath tube!!

We took a walk around Hanoi and along the way were swamped by some women selling fruit who literally within seconds had managed to drape their baskets on Liza's shoulder and plopped their conical hat on her head. Sean did take some pictures but just as we were leaving, we were told that we must now pay - oh no we had fallen for our first scam.

As we were walking around, we stumbled across the Water Puppet Show which was really just a silly show with puppets in water telling a story entirely in Vietnamese. It was a bit of a laugh but it would probably have helped if we had understood even a single word they were saying!

After the show we went to a Thai restaurant where we had some of the best food so far. Liza settled on a curry and when ordering the waiter kindly warned that it was quite spicy but given she is a well known spice freak just said 'bring it on!'. Sean ordered some noodles and again the waiter advised that this was quite spicy and, although not as enthusiastic as Liza "the hotter the better" Murphy, decided to risk it. He proudly managed to eat most of the dish although it has to be said we did have to order a couple of extra drinks to help with the pain!!

Now we should really have advised that crossing the road in Hanoi is like a national sport, with c2 million motorbikes (and counting) on the road, you quickly learn to duck & weave through the traffic. We are pleased to say that apart from a few close shaves we have managed to cross the roads and survive to tell the tale. However when we went in for our Thai dinner, we could not have foreseen the mayhem that greeted us when we walked out.

Apparently it was the last day of their Mid-Autumn festival and from what we can gather everyone from the town comes out to celebrate and when we say everyone, we do literally mean everyone. An entire family somehow use a Honda motorbike like a Ford space cruiser and results in a rather surreal scene of two adults and two, sometimes three kids, crammed onto a single bike. It was an unreal experience and meant all we could see for miles and miles were roads chock a block with motorbikes - check out our videos to see for yourself!!

The following day we were wondering around the city looking for a café (Sean needed a chocolate muffin fix) and happened to bump into Max, Linda & Nina - it's a small world - and arranged to meet up for dinner that evening after suggesting a seafood place on Hanoi's 'food street' that we had read about on the internet.

We were a bit apprehensive as we had never really eaten anywhere like this before but decided to just take the bull by the horns and give it a go. We therefore grabbed a table and were forced to sit on these small plastic seats which where more suitable for nursery kids - we were so low down to the ground that the people walking past us in the street looked massive and made it felt like a scene from Land of the Giants.

We ordered a half kilo of Tom (Shrimp) and Crab which turned out to be absolutely amazing. Once we had finished, we all decided to head back to our respective hostels but along the way Linda & Nina stumbled across another street restaurant serving some peculiar BBQ food. Max and the girls were being quite adventurous and promptly ordered some food so we just thought we would throw caution to the wind and give it a go - as the old saying goes 'Whilst in Rome…'.

However on this occasion we even surprised ourselves as in addition to "normal" food like squid, ribs and salmon we also ended up trying frogs and snails. To say this food is alien to us is an understatement (until three years ago Sean wouldn't eat Pizza and even now he thinks a Korma is a curry!!!) but we really enjoyed it all and washed the whole thing down with a couple of beers - heaven!

Oh and the whole night, two meals and loads of beer cost us less than a fiver each… we LOVE Vietnam!

We finished up and then said our goodbyes to the gang (we have made plans to meet up again in Thailand & Oz) before heading back to our hostel to pack as we are heading to Halong Bay tomorrow morning.