I was quite surprised to see that Quong had turned up at 9am at my hostel to pick me up and drive me round Hanoi showing me the sights as we had planned last night. He had brought along a spare helmet and I jumped on the back of his bike and we set off around the city on these crazy roads.Our first destination was the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex where we stopped at the One Pillar Pagoda which was built at around 1054 and designed to represent a lotus blossom, ...

As this was my first full day in Hanoi, I decided to get up and make the most of the day. I got out my guide book and planned a kind of circular route around the city capturing as many of the major sights that I thought I could fit in to one day.After leaving the hotel and walking 10 minutes up the road, I had very quickly realised why everyone in Hanoi drives a motorbike. There was no one else walking around and I was starting to sweat already, at least on a b...

I was up early to get a free transfer from my hostel to the airport, Lisa also came with me as we dropped her off at the hospital on the way. Last night we were talking about whether or not we should be taking anti-malaria tablets, I said I was and that I had been told to by my doctor, but Lisa wasn't. I think that I might have scared her as I told her the first signs of malaria were similar to getting a fever and as she wasn’t well and thought that s...