Getting back to a 'proper' city has been very good and even though there is less traffic here than in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) it is still busy, busy, busy with motorcycles, taxis, bicycles, buses and the odd tuk tuk all whizzing about the city streets, peeping horns, twenty four hours a day. Crossing the roads is challenging in a different way as the drivers seem slightly more erratic and they don't seem to be able to judge pedestrian flows across the roads quite as well as their southern cousins. No harm came to us applying the same rules as we did in HCMC, walking with purpose and keeping an eye on every vehicle (and not forgetting those going the wrong way), although Heather never felt relaxed with a motorcycle missing her by an inch or two!

Hanoi has a fair amount to see and being 'goats' rather than 'sheep' it was nice to be able to get around under our own steam, no organised tour or transport, just our own two feet, a map and our wits about us for crossing the road of course. Day one in Hanoi had us trying to see Uncle Ho, who is neatly embalmed in a mausoleum modelled on that of Lenin in Moscow. He does not take visitors on a Monday which did scupper our plans a little! We did however visit the 'house on stilts' where Ho Chi Minh lived, the One Pillar Pagoda (which seemed to be in a building site), the Tran Quoc Pagoda as well as a walk through the old town area of Hanoi. In the evening we had dinner at a restaurant and got talking to an American couple who were on their honeymoon, both were involved in the entertainment business in LA and the husband was a writer for such shows as Lost and Law and Order. They were on a two week whistle stop tour of Asia doing much of what we had done on our eight week trip! It was a really pleasant evening and having checked on the internet he really was a writer on Lost and Law and Order.

Day two and we did get to see Ho Chi Minh in his mausoleum taking our tally of visits to see an embalmed communist leader to three as we have already seen Lenin in Moscow and Mao in Beijing. There are four more embalmed leaders to see apparently, two in North Korea (Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il), one in The Philippines (Ferdinand Marcos) and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela! We also visited the impressive looking Ho Chi Minh Museum which if honest left us no clearer about his life than you could probably read on Wikipedia. The place seemed more like a modern art museum interspersed with lots of photographs but very little actual informative facts. A twenty minute walk from the museum took us to the Hun Tiep Lake which has part of an American B-52 bomber sat in it that was shot down over Hanoi in December 1972, again the lack of interpretative information made this a bit of a wasted detour with the exception of seeing some of the real back alleyways of Hanoi as you dodged the motorcyclists. We also visited the Hoa Lo Prison or as it was known by American prisoners of war the 'Hanoi Hilton' a place that certainly can not be confused with the Hilton Hanoi!

Christmas Eve was our third full day in the Vietnamese capital and this allowed us to explore the new town area around the opera (including walking by the Hilton Hanoi) as well as visiting Starbucks for a drink and snack. This area was very different to the Old Town area which was hectic and shabby compared with the wider boulevards and business feel of the more modern area. The afternoon saw us visit the Vietnam National History Museum which again followed the general pattern of Vietnamese museums of showing lots of photographs but very little description. There was a nice display of historic pottery and ancient tools but neither of these really floated our boat. The evening did however allow us to sit overlooking Hoan Kiem lake as the sun went down (unfortunately behind an overcast sky). As the city started to light up and dazzle a little around the lake, the traffic peeped, honked and scuttled around beneath us. It really was a nice view of the city before heading back to the hotel.

Christmas Day is just like any other day in Hanoi, it is not a holiday, the shops are open and the roads are as busy as ever. We had booked a table for lunch at a French restaurant in the Old Town called The Green Tangerine on our first day in Hanoi and given they were turning people away when we arrived it was a good job we did. The meal turned out to be the best overall of our eight weeks in Asia with good service, tasty and innovative food, lovely surroundings and a great price too. They were offering the set lunch menu which gave five choices for starters, mains and desserts for the amazing price of 305,000 Dong which is about £9.50. The clientele were mostly westerners celebrating Christmas Day but it was a nice couple of hours spent away from the hustle and bustle of the city enjoying great food. By the time we got back to the hotel it was time to catch up with fhanoi riends and family on Skype making the best of the time differences to speak with people in the UK and New Zealand. It was nice to see people enjoying their Christmas Day elsewhere in the world.

So the trip draws to a close but our last day in Asia however is damp and drizzly, not heavy rain but enough not to really want to go tramping about the city knowing that we have twenty four hours of travel ahead of us to get back home. We were hoping to visit the Military Museum and the old Citadel which were very close to the hotel, but this being a Friday means both were closed (contrary to the information on thier website) which was a shame.

So that leaves us with a fair few hours to kill before catching the flight back to Birmingham via Bangkok (with Thai Airways) and then onwards to Dubai and the UK with Emirates. Looking at the positives this does include our first flight on a Boeing 787 'Dreamliner' to Bangkok and then a few hours between flights to stretch our legs before catching an Airbus A380 (another first for us!!) from Bangkok and then a rather boring Boeing 777 on the final leg of this trip to BHX. Hopefully these will all be peaceful and quiet flights ahead of arrival into what will be a very cold Birmingham International Airport. Brrrrrrr.