We caught a sleeper bus from Vientiane, Laos to Hanoi, Vietnam. On arrival at the bus station Helen was mildly assaulted by the bus crew while boarding and getting seated as Helen did not realise that us 'white people' had to be cramped in the back of the bus like sardines while all the Asian people got luxurious individual seats - and it annoys us to think that we probably paid more for our ticket! Our journey should have taken us 23 hours but took us 28 hours (various people kept asking to go to the toilet then one of our tyres went flat!)

We did manage to grab 40 winks and arrived at the Lao-Vietnam border at about 5am, we had to wait until 8am and it was blissfully cool at the top. Once all the passport stuff was completed we had to walk from the Lao immigration office to the Vietnam immigration office and to do this we walked approx 1km in 'No Mans Land' which was strange. The air was full of mist and fog which was welcoming after the sweltering heat in Vientiane. When we arrived back at our bus our clothes were soaking from the mist.

On entering Vietnam, we saw children ploughing the fields with their cows, rice workers tending to their paddies, farmers caring for their cows and RAIN! We finally arrived at our tres funky hostel in the Old Quarter of Hanoi at about 8pm and the foyer was packed. The location was definitely reminiscent of the Asia we have dreamed from afar.

Ha Noi (between Rivers); the capital of Viet Nam was our starting point of our smash and grab tour of Viet Nam. Our initial thoughts were "Big Trouble n Little China" as it has that same feel. Hanoi is the place where old Asia blends in with new Asia, and everywhere you look there are masses of scooters swarming through the streets, it has to be seen to be believed.

After grabbing some dinner it was already 11pm so we headed to bed (a double bed in a dorm which was cool!).

The next morning we woke early to make the most of our day being as cultural as possible. Our first stop was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, (the final resting place of Ho Chi Minh - which is the holiest of holies for many Vietnamese) When entering Nick jumped at the sight of President Ho Chi Minh's embalmed body as he thought it would just be a tomb. Helen had to refrain from laughing to prevent the guards from telling her off. Apparently Ho Chi Minh's body gets shipped off to Russia for 3 months of the year to be embalmed but there is also a rumour that Madam Tussauds has a contract to maintain his waxwork - we couldn't decide when we saw his body. It was surreal to see just how many Vietnamese make the pilgrimage to worship their former leader. We can't imagine the British public doing that to the likes of Tony Blair or Gordon Brown!

After having lunch at an awesome 'middle class food stall' eating street food in style. We headed to Hoa Lao Prison where many American POW's were held during the Vietnam War, their nickname for the prison was the 'Hanoi Hilton'. This was an eerie and surreal experience as you can imagine the sort of conditions they were kept in, and while looking into the cells we swear we felt thousands of people walking over our graves.

However, we were led to believe from the museum that the Americans received cushy treatment as they were allowed to have proper Xmas dinner, play sports, socialise with beers etc which in a stark contrast to how the Vietnamese political prisoners were treated was shameful. Did you know, John McCain who ran for presidency in 2008 fought in the war and there are photos of his young self in the museum. Did his involvement in the Vietnam war affect his chances while running for presidency?

Our last museum of the day was the Women's Museum which was fab especially the women in Vietnamese history exhibit - women power! The museum explained a lot more about the women soldiers in the Vietnam war, their role in family life, Vietnamese rituals and customs. The museum also had a new exhibit called "Mother Goddess" which is a Vietnamese folk belief where people address their concerns of daily life, desire for good health and good fortune. We didn't particularly enjoy the new exhibit as we really enjoyed the factual information about the War, so we can't wait to go to Saigon to visit the War museum and the tunnels.

On our way back to the hostel after walking around Hanoi all day, we couldn't resist temptation and found this really cute ice cream parlour and even though it was freezing out we ordered a sundae each. The ice cream place was directly opposite Hoan Kiem Lake - rumour has it that a rare breed of turtle lives in the lake and that if you see it you will be blessed with good luck so naturally Helen was staring at the lake the entire walk back to the hostel in hope of seeing one. (if you must know, she didn't see one!)

The evening was spent at the hostel participating in a quiz night, where all the girls in our team were called Helen! Needless to say, we didn't win :( but it was still good fun!

The next morning we enjoyed a lie in, for the first time in ages and chilled out walking around the old quarter visiting the Dong Xuan Market - a market described by the Lonely Planet as a tourist attraction in its own right. While browsing a woman grabbed Helen forcefully and tried to force her to buy some stuff, naturally Helen grabbed her back - she ran away and everyone started laughing. Don't think she thought white people especially deaf people could be assertive too. The market was a bit rubbish too!

We bought a 'hop on, hop off" bus ticket that would take us all the way to Saigon. Our first bus was to Hue, finally we were on a bus full of tourists and managed to nab some decent seats without being harassed or assaulted by the staff(!) We managed to make it to Hue which was a massive surprise considering the amount of times the bus headed into oncoming traffic and swerved to prevent a crash, needless to say both of us had a restless night!