The first thing I need to say from Hanoi is sorry to all the people I promised Kim-cooked Vietnamese food to when I got home - I didn't manage to do the cooking course I'd planned on doing, due to all the course we founds being a) too expensive, b) too meaty, c) too undersubscribed or d) ideal in terms of price and dishes, but less promising when we ate lunch there and found the food to be a bit rubbish! Shah and I actually spent the best part of our first day in Hanoi looking for these courses, wandering round in the cold and drizzle. Not the best introduction to a capital city!

We were staying in the Old Quarter, the centre of which is Hoan Kiem Lake, and right next to it is the water puppet theatre, which is the local entertainment, and a big tradition in Vietnam. We booked tickets for a show that evening, and it turned out to be quite a strange experience - imagine Punch and Judy set to Oriental music, in the water, with dragons and monsters, and you're almost there! The first scene featured four dragons blowing water and fireworks out of their mouths, which was pretty cool, although I think they showed us the good stuff too soon because none of the other scenes lived up to it! Overall it was quite entertaining, but probably more fun if you're below the age of 10.

The next day we discovered that there's not actually a whole lot to do in Hanoi, if you've already had your fill of war museums and former prisons. So after I'd taken a trip to the temple of literature (very pretty and I'm sure a lovely place to spend a lot of time in if it's not grey and raining) and the local market while Selina tried to sort out her visa for China (with even less sucess that I'd had with the coooking class), we decided there was only one sensible thing to do - go to the pub. So we joined forces with new friends Richard (an English guy we'd met after the water puppets), Erin (an Aussie girl who we'd met in My Tho, Hoi An and again in Hanoi) and Dawn (an American lady who Shah just bumped into on the way to the pub), and spent the rest of the afternoon knocking back glass after glass of Tiger beer - time well spent I think! As I had an early flight to Kuala Lumpur the next morning, I sensibly retired at around 11, but when I left Shah and everyone in an Irish bar, they were still going strong! Great fun, and it just about saved Hanoi from being a below-parr stop on the trip.