Monday 17th March 2008

At some point during the night we passed over the DMZ, which is the area which separated North and South Vietnam during the war, and entered into Northern Vietnam. We woke up at just before 6am to look out of the window and see the start of Hanoi. Even though it was really early - there were thousands of people about. There were older people in the park doing aerobics and it seemed like the city had been awake for hours! The bus stopped and, i'm not sure how, but we ended up being bundled into a taxi with two older women and taken to the guesthouse area of the Old Quarter of the City. We got out when the taxi stopped and some guy paid our fare - only for us to decide that we didn't want to stay in his place - so we walked away.

I'm not sure what the guesthouse managers of Vietnam thought of us, but each one we turned up at turfed us out. Some even told us that they had spaces at other guesthouses and when we got there told us it wasn't true - it was a nightmare. It got to about 8.30am and we still hadn't found anywhere. Finally, we found a little hotel, called the Camellia Hotel, which seemed ok so we checked in there. After finding our room we went back out and, to reward ourselves for our tough morning, treated ourselves to a full English breakfast.

We spent the rest of our day exploring the nations capital. We walked around the Hoan Kiem Lake and then did our own city walk - really getting into the hidden parts and mixing with the locals. I didn't really know what to think of Hanoi at first. Ho Chi Minh had a really good vibe - a real wheeler-dealer attitude about it, and Hanoi seemed... different - but that soon changed! We were walking down the streets and there were people selling fresh cuts of meat (so fresh that I saw the animals walk out to the chopping block) and all kinds of foods. One woman, who was selling fruit, approached us and handed Nikki her basket. She then started shouting 'picture, picture' at me. I took a picture of Nikki and she did the same to me. We offered the lady some money and she took it, and gave us a bag of fruit. When we said we didn't want it, she wouldn't have it back - even though we said she could keep the money for the pictures. The next thing I know, the lady has somehow managed to get the original 5,000VD I gave her, plus an extra 20,000VD from me for the fruit - and then she was gone! Talking of selling everything - we were approached by one guy who first offered us books for sales - to which we said 'no thank you' - he then went onto offer us weed and then opium! We said 'no thank you' to those too!

While we were out we booked a trip for tomorrow to Halong Bay and also some flight tickets to Laos for the 21st. This evening we went to this great little restaurant called 'Little Hanoi' and had the most amazing meal.

Yeah, I think we'll like Hanoi after all!