The first thing I had to do was change some money to dong. I felt like a millionaire at first until I worked out the conversion rate. 1,000 dong is 3 cents. 30,000 dong is roughly €1 and €10 is just under 300,00 dong. Confused was not the word. I was pretty exhausted after the flight and decided that I wouldn't be able to cope with public transport. I got in a taxi and asked for Hanoi Backpackers and began the terror of my first experience of Asian driving. I thought that maybe I got unlucky an just had a reckless driver but a few more weeks in Asia proved that he just was just driving in the Asian style.

My feelings when I first got to Hanoi were of shock and worry to be honest. I had no idea what I had just got myself in for. We passed Honda and Canon factories along the way that were enormous beyond belief. There were people walking along the road carrying bags and fresh produce. There were 3 or four people on scooters without any helmets including children and babies in their mothers arms! There were people talking on their phones on motorbikes, driving pretty fast. It was mainly the traffic that scared me first off I was just so shocked as the taxi driver weaved in and out between mopeds with little regard for other drivers! Eventually made it and ran into Claire McCabe at reception. Then the adventure really began. She arrived a few days before while Sorcha had been in Vietnam 2 weeks and had visited Sapa and. So I had my first meal, a veggie burger and fries, not really Vietnamese cuisine. I carefully picked off all of the salad and wiped the bun in case any contaminated water used to wash the salad had run onto the bun. It's so funny writing this now, knowing how low my standards went with food after a few weeks.

It's a wonder I remember any of this, I was so tired but we walked down the street to a coffee shop where Claire and Sorcha had already made a local friend, called Sun. He was studying tourism in college and seemed to be really happy to show us around the city a little. We saw Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum but couldn't go inside unfortunately because his body was away being preserved. We walked around the main a park and went to a café where I tasted my first Vietnamese coffee, sparking a 3 week long love affair. Café Sua is basically an espresso and usually it is served in a pot and is left to brew and drain in front of you. Then you add condensed milk and it is so insanely good. You can also get it over ice which became my drink of choice all through south East Asia, although the coffees that I had in Vietnam were never beaten.