In Hanoi

After the stress of getting gong on this trip and in order to let myself acclimatise I'd booked four days in a nice little boutique hotel in the old quarter. On reflection this may have been a little too long... I mean, Hanoi has a lot of character and a few things to do but it also has more scooters than residents, or so it seems, and bloody narrow streets.

Now, people have told me that Hanoi is like Saigon when it comes to crossing the road. Courage, cross slowly but steadily and they'll part around you as if by magic. Kind of works in Saigon but in Hanoi too many of them were busy texting to bother to look. Seriously.

Still, had a few nice days wandering around in the gloom (very very grey skies with occasional drizzle) but finally it was time for me to go and I was chomping at the bit! I'd got me maps (if you need them there are some OK bookshops selling road atlases on Trang Tien, south of the post office).

Photo should be of my reconstructed bike and one of the chaps from the hotel (shout out for Art Trendy Boutique Hotel, lovely crew working there, great breakfast to boot). I say "should be", photo upload is being a pain at the moment.