For some reason, when booking the flights for this trip, it felt like a good idea to take Qatar Airways. They seem to have a good reputation and they are not based in Western Europe; which is probably a good thing. Also on the upside, it worked out £600 cheaper than the direct flights on Vietnam Airlines. Unfortunately, using Qatar meant flying Heathrow to Doha, Doha to Bangkok and finally, Bangkok to Hanoi. On paper this seemed like a good idea but, of course, when it came down to actually doing it, it was a bit of a drag. The first leg was OK. We had an entire Airbus A380 cabin to ourselves since the plane was practically empty. Sadly, the following two legs were on a packed (and rather worn) Boeing 777-300. Needless to say, we exited the International Arrivals at Hanoi's Nội Bài airport rather shabby and worse for wear 19 hours after leaving Heathrow. Immediately, we were plunged into 30°C heat (acceptable) and ferocious humidity (not so clever). On the upside, the hotel had sent a boy as promised and he whisked us the 35km into downtown Hanoi where the trip proper could finally commence.

Hanoi

Our hotel in Hanoi (Hà Nội) is called the Golden Legend. Whilst it is not apparent exactly what is legendary about the place, we did observe that it is so good that there are two of them in the same street. We had been forewarned about imitation hotels setting up with the same or similar name to an existing, successful one so alarm bells rang immediately. Apparently, however, both Golden Legends are owned by the same people. The staff inside the building we were delivered to did seem to know all about our booking so they seemed legitimate. In any case, they were very pleasant and the place is fine. Fine that is, unless you want to bring "animal's bulky assets" into your room, because that is on the list of forbidden items (along with the usual firearms and drugs) according to the hotel brochure. Shame!

We are based on the edge of Hanoi's Old Quarter so we have good walking access to the main sights, but are not close to the backpacker haunts that remind of Ko San Road. We have easy access to the picturesque Hoan Kiem lake and can circumambulate said lake eating unidentified bits of meat on sticks along with the locals and tourists. Our first impressions of Vietnam based solely on one evening out in Hanoi are that it is like a clean, quiet, more civilized version of India. Mind you, most countries could be described thus. One thing that will take some getting used to is the currency. Normally, you can look at a bank note and figure out its value from the number written on it - £10 is worth twice £5 for example. Here that is not quite the case. The equivalent of £0.03 in the UK is 1000 đồng here. What this means is that you will frequently be carrying 1000₫, 10,000₫ and 100,000₫ at the same time plus all the twos and fives of course. As a result, working out the value of something (or how much to hand over) is reduced to counting the number of zeros on the note. Overpaying by a factor of 10 or even 100 is a distinct possibility. Still, at least there aren't any coins.

We had wondered about going to visit the interred remains of Ho Chi Minh at his mausoleum, but apparently he goes to Russia for a bit of a spruce up in November, so that will have to wait until we return next month. Instead, our first full day out took us to the local prison - an auspicious start to anyone's itinerary. This place was used by the French to incarcerate local resistance fighters for the first half of the 20th century. All the propaganda exhibits refer to the prisoners as glorious revolutionaries, but they seemed to have been imprisoned for about 50 years which is an awful long time for a revolution in anyone's book. We learned all about how badly the prisoners were treated but how they retained their revolutionary spirit and finally escaped to win their country back. Rather more recently, the prison was used during the American war and we learned all about how well the American PoWs were treated. Amongst the US forces captured, a certain Senator John McCain was shot down, dragged out of a lake and locked up here. During the war, the Americans referred to this place as the Hanoi Hilton. Amusingly, now the prison has closed, some of the land has been sold and developed into... you guessed it, a hotel.

In the old quarter of Hanoi, there are many streets that specialise in a particular product. There is a street that sells shoes and one that specialises in votive offerings for kitting out your church. Megan was particularly pleased to be told by the hotel staff that there is a street dedicated to selling ice cream. We went there and, in the spirit of research, tried out a few flavours. There is also a street that sells only headstones. What is strange is that they seem to be already carved with dates. It must be quite difficult when shopping to find a stone with the correct dates on it! As if that wasn't bad enough, many stones have pictures of the deceased on them too. Imagine trying to find a stone with the correct dates and portraying a reasonable likeness to boot! Only slightly more creepy is mannequin street!

We have discovered that every morning at 7am we are to be treated to an hour of government propaganda via the street-mounted loud speakers. This would be unintelligible gibberish at the best of times, but coming fully distorted out of a rain-sodden 1950s loudhailer lashed to a lamppost does nothing to improve the situation. Apparently the announcements are invariably exhortations to the populous to keep the streets clean, to do their exercises and to sing the party song. Imagine our delight to discover that the 7am start is a concession to the capital. Out in the provinces, it's 5am. We can't wait. This kind of state mind control clearly works since, when we suggested cutting the wires to the speaker, this did not seem to have occurred to anyone.

In terms of typical, traditional Vietnamese stuff, we went to a puppet show. The puppets perform in a lake and [spoiler alert] are operated by dudes in galoshes hidden behind a curtain. The puppets appear up out of the water and splash about a bit - which is quite a novel idea. We pretty soon spotted the common theme as puppet fishermen chased puppet fish and puppet dudes rode around on puppet water buffalo playing pipes. Still, the accompanying music and singing were good.

So far we have eaten only Vietnamese food with the exception of the odd cake (the defeated French were kind enough to leave behind a few patisserie). Street restaurants are generally shabby and grubby looking, but the food is extremely tasty and generally healthy. The service is monumentally rapid too which is testament to the freshness. On the one occasion we had to wait more than five minutes, one of the other diners noticed and checked with the owner to see if we had been forgotten. We did visit a local market to see where the food came from. Perhaps not entirely wise, but Megan had already announced she wasn't touching snails anyway and turtle is clearly off the menu!

So, all in all, a pretty good start. We like Hanoi, have only met friendly people and would not hesitate to recommend a visit to anyone. We will be returning here a couple of times: once on the way to Halong Bay and once to pick up our flight to Cambodia. For now, we are leaving the city for our first taste of rural Vietnam. We are taking an eight hour overnight "sleeper" train up into the foothills of the Himalaya to the coldest place in the country. Stick around for the next installment if you want to find out how that goes.

By the way, in case anyone who read our Northern India blog was wondering, yes, the man who hammers is here and in fine form. We shall say no more about it!