We arrived in Hanoi 3 hours early after a wild night bus journey. Unfortunately it was only 4.30AM when we arrived and we didn't have a hotel booked. The bus dropped us off about 2KM out of town, there was a man there waiting, trying to get people to go to his hotels and getting taxis for people but we have read about so many scams we decided to walk with a few others off of the bus. We walked for half an hour and the rain started coming down, we tried a few places but at this time of the morning there was nothing open. Luckily a man pulled up on a moped and showed us to his hotel which was cheap and best of all open.

Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and sits in the north. It is known to be hectic and have the most traffic. Once we had had a rest we headed out to have a look round. As you know it's the Lunar New year so the craziest city in Vietnam was a ghost town, there were only a few restaurants and cafes open, we found one that did beans on toast with hash-browns. Since Hue we haven't had much luck with the weather, we arrived in the rain and it continued to be cold and cloudy for most of our first day here.

We walked the walking tour from the lonely planet guide which was nice but most of the attractions were shops and these were all closed. The city is made up of different districts which are spread around a lake in the middle, we were staying in the Old Town and this was where we walked; all the buildings are very old and have a lot of character.

Due to the holidays we thought it may be a good to head to Halong Bay for a couple of days so we booked on to a tour that afternoon hoping the weather there would be better.