Before arriving in Vietnam, we had one last night of luxury at the Bangkok Airport Novotel.We spent an entire day's budget on a big room with a deluxe bathroom, high thread count sheets and a tropical outdoor pool with a swim-up bar.It was wonderful until we had to get ourselves out of bed at 4am for our flight to Hanoi.

We found Hanoi the exact opposite of the slow pace and chilled atmosphere of Ko Lanta; cars and motorbikes flew down the street with no attention paid to 'lanes'.The Old Quarter, where we were staying, was filled with shops spilling out onto the sidewalks forcing pedestrians to walk in the street amongst the wild traffic. Crossing the street was an adventure since there was never a break in the traffic long enough to allow you to run across. Instead, you just had to slowly walk into the steady stream of motorbikes and they whipped around you. It was an incredibly unnerving experience to say the least! In addition to all of the madness on the road, cyclos (men driving bicycles with a passenger's seat in front) slowly follow you around like a dog's tail constantly asking if you want a ride."One hour, I make cheap for you," they sang out. We did eventually take a short ride in a cyclo; it was driven by a man that was well over 60 and agreed to take us both.He managed quite well until he had to go up an incline over the railway tracks, that seemed to get him huffing and puffing but he smiled the whole way!All of this madness should have equaled a headache but we found it oddly energizing.

Walking around the Old Quarter and French Quarter, we discovered several unique shops, bars, restaurants, bookshops and bakeries selling wonderful French bread and pastries.We also stumbled on grander sites like a misplaced neogothic cathedral, Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum and the Army History Museum.The museum offered us a good laugh as it is basically a shrine to the greatness of the Vietnamese Army and had some shocking but hilarious captions about the inferior quality of the French and American weapons and the like (check out the photo album for more examples).

Like a really rich dessert, we found that we could only take small bites of Hanoi and signed up to join a three day tour of Halong Bay.We had heard wonderful things about this tour and were really excited about the unique scenery but as we drove out of Hanoi I read in the guidebook that Halong Bay was frequently compared to Guilin, China and Krabi, Thailand!We knew what they meant; limestone karst jutted up out of the bay for miles.It was beautiful, but we had seen similar before and therefore wasn't overly impressed (are we becoming jaded travelers already?).The tour ended up being an organizational shambles and we were passed from group to group, never quite knowing what was going on, where our passports were or what we were supposed to do.

Regardless of the confusion, we managed to spend the night on Catba Island which felt to me like a ski resort in the summer (i.e. deserted) but we found a beautiful beach and crashed a bizarre Chinese tour group's beach party complete with a bonfire, tug of war, arm wrestling and of course, techno dancing. As if the party wasn't weird enough, at 9pm everyone got up, said bye-bye and left!Then the Vietnamese organizers stacked up all of the chairs, dismantled the sound system and put out the fire - gently telling us that the party was over.

The following night we spend on a boat in the bay, which was special. We had a half-moon and it gave just enough light to see countless karst looming over us and the boat sat in the still water.I also had the pleasure of introducing some people to 'Pit' which is a card game where you trade commodities. Strangely enough, the people on the boat with us were young investment bankers from London and they really got into it.

The next morning we woke up and were sitting in a two-person kayak just in time to see the sun rise and Antony paddled us around (I refused since it was so early) looking at the floating houses, fish farms and grocery delivery boats sharing the bay with us.Then we got back on the boat to have lunch at 10:30am(?!) and to our relief, collect our passports.

This led us to a crossroads.We had originally planned to go south to Hue, in the center of the country, but had heard that the city had endured terrible flooding a couple of weeks ago resulting in over 200 deaths and several hundred crocodiles escaping from a local farm.Most travelers were going to skip this part of the country and go further south to Saigon but were still keen to give it a go. So with very little information, other than a dry forecast, we boarded an overnight bus to Hue.This could either be incredibly stupid or we could luck out and have Hue all to ourselves.

Until next time!

Love, R & A