Hanoi at last

After a gruelling 14 hours flying with no sleep we have finally set down in Hanoi, and no sooner had we done so than we were treated to some good old socialist bureaucracy!

Thankfully our visas on arrival were genuine, but in order to get through customs we had to queue at one window to hand over our passports and visa letter, in return for yet another form to be filled in. We then haad to queue at another window to hand the form and $50 over to get our passports back along with completed visa.

However, queueing was probably too strong a word for it. At the second window you just sort of milled around aimlessly with everyone else until a customs person held up a random passport, at which point there would be a surge towards the desk so that everyone could get close enough to see if it was theirs! Luckily ours came out quite quickly, and it was a relatively painleess, if stressy and cluesless, experience.

The same could not be said for the taxi journey into the city! Having been quoted twice what we were expecting at the tourist desk we took our chances with a random taxi only to be treated to some very exciting manoeuvers, dodging mopeds, cyclists, other cars etc all while tottling our horn vigorously.

But we made it to the hotel in one piece and have been allowed to check in early, so just freshening up before doing some exploring.