Southeast Asia

Our first morning in Hanoi and it's as bustling, frenetic and frantic by day as it was last night. The streets are a cacophony of beeping scooters and cars and traffic is crazy - crossing the road becomes easy once you realise you just need to step out and avoid everything which is trying to avoid you as well. It works, largely because despite the haphazard nature of it all, no one drives aggressively.

We walked down busy streets from the old quarter towards the old citadel first. We passed plenty of communist propaganda, in part as new year is coming up but also because we went past various official buildings. There was a statue of good old Lenin surrounded by a children's fun fair. We walked past the train track as it runs inches from the surrounding houses and businesses and in a few days we'll be on the train as it speeds through this area. We saw some faded colonial architecture and the old Flag Tower (a lookout that was to warn the citadel of danger) before arriving at the Old Citadel.Read more