Hanoi, Vietnam

We cheat and book a flight from Vientiane to Hanoi as we hear the land crossing is pretty hellish and would take us 2 days to get to Hanoi. Adding to that is the fact that in entering Vietnam at the mid-point we'd have to double back on ourselves. The flight takes an hour and is an absolute dream, so easy. Not such a culture shock as Bangkok airport we still get husseled for a taxi. Get offered one for $9, then the driver puts the meter on so it costs $14, not such a difference but its still stressful trying to get dropped off at the right place. We're forewarned and forearmed so when we pull up at the Thu Giang guesthouse and a rep opens my passenger door, saying "3 bed room, come in, come in" I'm checking for the street name- wrong street. I'm shouting at the driver to take us to the right place ( I'd read the street name out to him and he'd repeated it back to me, so I feel understandably annoyed that he's trying to double scam us). He reverses up a one way street to a symphony of car horns and finally drops us in the right place. Our room is lovely though, really comfy beds and clean. We're splurging though at $5 each a night! The guesthouse is really narrow, long and tall. This is/was to avoid certain taxes. The best way to cross the street seems to be to close your eyes, cross your fingers and walk at a steady pace, knowing that they will avoid you. There will inevitably be a soundtrack of carhorns, as they beep at everything, to tell you to get out of the way, if they're about to overtake etc etc. The vietnamese merchants quarter is an absolute maze of little shops, the same types congregate on the same street. Shoes street, bedding street, fruit & veg street, Christmas decoration street, etc etc. Everyone seems to walk around in their pyjamas a lot, and they definately are pyjamas not just clothes that look like them. There's quite a big lake which is fairly central, and nice to walk around. Although we walk around as a group of 3 we still get lots of cyclo drivers or moped taxis pestering us- they wouldn't have a hope of getting all of us on, we're fairly sure its safer and easier to walk too as everything is pretty central. We have visited uncle Ho in his mausoleum and also been to the Ho Chi Minh museum, really strict security. Definately an experience to remember was eating in the street kitchens where you can watch them cooking your noodles then while they're chopping up chicken's feet later on, wonder if there were any in your soup! We have also discovered the delights of bia hoi, tiny little street bars serving glasses (probably 1/3 of a pint) of beer (probably 2-3%) for 6p a glass! Amazing! Tastes good and is easy to drink too.