Wow what a day!! It started off on the wrong foot, we tried to get the hire bikes for Roo and Matt the American to cycle to Halong bay. We trekked across town to the bike hire place to find it closed! The security man at the bike hire place telephoned someone and sent us away to another hotel the other side of the town. Anyway after about 2 hrs of walking around the town we had seen the bikes, but the woman who has the keys for the lock seemed to have disappeared? So we left with out tails between our legs, feeling down beat. As we walked back to our hostel Roo suggested we don't waste the day and hire scooters to get out of the city. I'll be honest I was not game! I have several issues with motorcycles; 1, I most probably will die; 2, I can't drive one; 3, I am not a good passenger/ not prepared to be a passenger; 4, the traffic is actually insane... I could continue!

Anyway as you all know I'm not very good at saying no so I went along with it, on the proviso that I could drive. And that I didn't have responsibility for Roo- mum would never forgive me if I killed both of us!!

So we haggled down the price of the scooters, got basic instructions on how to start and stop the thing and we were off on the Nicholls Topgear Vietnam special! Roo started off pilling with Matt the American and I started off with Magi the French Canadian on the back of my bike. We had decided we would head out of the city to a national park about 50k west. Armed with a basic map and a compass we began.... Dodging bikes, scooters, cars and busses. I was totally terrified! I can honestly say i have never been so scared in my whole life- i actually thought i would die really. Magi was great she was navigating and encouraging me along the route. Gradually i gained confidence as we progressed. After an hr of riding thru Hanoi traffic the city started to thin out and somehow we had ended up on the correct road. The road surface deteriorated, the dust levels increased and the motor vehicles turned to push bikes with the occasional heavy construction truck. We stopped for lunch at a roadside cafe ( see picture) where we caused some amusement to the local when parking our scooters.

After lunch we swapped around Roo came on my bike and Magi drove with Matt pillion. So I would seem Roo is lacking totally in core muscles! I was being pretty steady on the bike, cautious and smooth. Everytime I eased off the accelerator or applied the brake slightly she would head butt me from behind! This we both found totally hilarious! We rode further into the country side past a dog farm- not nice - how much dog have we eaten so far???

On the road home we got stuck behind a slow moving truck heavily loaded and kicking up tons of dust... I tried to over take it several time but bottled it, eventually I spotted my gap on the inside- I went for it not quite realising the quality of road surface really was poor, we hit a massive pot hole or 2 and Roo almost came off the back!! This again was totally hilarious once we had regained control!

Returning back to Hanoi we hit rush hour. This is like nothing I have seen before. Every Inch of Tarmac is filled with some kind of vehicle busses, cars and more motorbikes than you can imagine. After we almost got taken out by a bus I called timeout. We pulled over and stopped for a coffee until the traffic eased a little. Eventually we made it back unscathed and having had an exhilarating experience.... Not sure I'll be rushing to get back on a scooter tho!