Good Morning Vietnam

Hanoi Guesthouse, Hanoi

Spent a further afternoon and evening doing not much in and around the Khuo San Road, with the exception of an hour-long boat trip around the city's canal network which was an absolute treat.

The next morning, after a minor mishap involving a malfunctioning snooze button and a hurried taxi ride, we arrived at Bangkok International Airport a mere 45 minutes before departure, and at the gate just as boarding was beginning. Disaster averted.

After a bustling taxi ride to our hotel, Tweedie neglected to look before opening her door to get out, and an elderly Vietnamese motorcyclist went flying. He looked throughly shocked and clearly did not understand a word of her mortified and profuse apologies, but after a minute's sit down he was back in the saddle with only a grazed knuckle for his troubles. Tweedie was more scarred than this, and spent much of the rest of the day being as nice as possible to everyone in the hotel and surrounding area in an attempt to regain some half-decent karma.

If this represented an inauspicious start to our time in Vietnam, it didn't take long for the auspices to feel different. Hanoi is an instantly charming capital city full of leafy streets, interesting shops, atmospheric streetside bars and pavement restaurants, and friendly, trendy people. The impression of the last three days is that the Vietnamese are an effortlessly cool bunch, though not too self-involved not to help a lost-looking tourist or explain in broken English the origins of an ambiguous meat. In short, I love this place.

Yesterday we visited the understandably propagandist National Military Museum, but apart from this burst of activity we have spent the last 60 hours meandering through aforementioned streets, poking our noses into shops and galleries and stopping for coffee/beer/noodles as appropriate.

As if this wasn't enjoyable enough, each time we have had a bill to settle in the Vietnamese currency it has been immense fun to ask "How much of my Dong do I need to take out?" or variants on this hilarious theme. I don't see how this joke can ever get old. We have three weeks to find out.

Over.