Vietnam

Vietnam is quite a different place to travel than Thailand is.

I arrived in Hanoi, but unfortunately lack of planning did not allow me to see much of the place. I went to Halong bay, that was beautiful but took up 2 of my 3 days in Hanoi. I spent the rest of my time between the hotel and the travel agent, that was great. www.wideeyedtours.com - highly recommeded. The only impression of Hanoi was BUSY - the traffic and noise is something to be seen and heard.

Walking around the old quarter is an experience - I got totally ripped off trying to buy a tracksuit top, which is not easy to find in my size in Vietnam. Bought a 'genuine' Adidas tracky, that has the funniest labels you have ever seen 'Genuine leather' / 'we stressed authenticity' - anyway, I knew that I was being ripped off at the time, but had been looking for something that would fit be for about 2 hours so did not really care at that stage.

Have now arrived in Hue for a couple of nights and am killing time while waiting for the hotel room to get ready. Caught a cab from the hotel in Hanoi at the ungodly hour of 4:45 am - all the lights downstairs where switched off, so I lost my sunglasses when I tripped over the stairs - bummer. Fortunately can buy the rip-offs pretty cheaply over here.

More on Vietnam later.