Our first few days in Vietnam were a big step up in intensity compared to Laos! We arrived safely in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam with a population of over six million people. Pure chaos. The traffic here is unbelievable. Motorbikes flood the streets, running red lights, and cut so close beside you as you walk. We were taught the rules of the road by a local... Number one: No rules. Crossing the street is quite the adventure, as there is never a stop in traffic, so you just go and the bikes will cut behind you as long as you keep moving forward. It is unreal how much you can fit on a motorbike. Four people, a toilet, dogs, 500 pineapples, anything! The law here states you have to wear a helmet, so everyone wears these tiny thin plastic baseball hats. How safe! The city is huge, but we stayed in the Old Quarter, which is built around a lake and is full of shops, cafés, markets, guesthouses, and tons of local people and their homes. Just outside the Old Quarter is the French Quarter, where the French influence is obvious in the architecture of the buildings, including St Joseph's Cathedral which was built to look like the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. Upon arriving in Vietnam, we both became multi-millionaires, with $100US exchanging for about two million dong! We are slowly getting used to spending 5000 on a bottle of water, or 50 000 for dinner, but all the bills look the same! In Vietnam, you are addressed based on your age, with "you" being split into fifteen different categories for different ages, with older people receiving higher respect. When meeting someone for the first time, it is common to ask their name, and then how old they are or what year they were born in to properly address them. When booking our bus tickets and other activities, we have had to write our names and year of birth. We have tried a lot of the local food, including the famous noodle soup, phò. The menus here are not always in English, so we only know to order pho ga, which is pho with chicken, or pho bo, which has beef. Hanoi is also famous for their beer, which comes only in kegs, but they call them "tanks." It is super cheap, costing under $1 for four glasses. We could see many Vietnamese people eating the pho and beer on the streets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We have also been enjoying a lot of the fruits from the markets here, including lychee, mangosteen, and oranges. The oranges look and taste the same as at home on the inside, but the peel is dark green. We took a day trip to Halong Bay, the pride of Vietnam. They say if you haven't been to Halong Bay, you haven't been to Vietnam. It is one of the New 7 Natural Wonders of the world. It was stunning! We took a cruise, which was lovely, and went through a fishing village and all around the limestone karsts. They drive their boats like they drive their cars though. Within the first ten minutes, we had already crashed into another boat! We are now making our way south through Vietnam. We just made it to Hoi An, a much smaller town, after 22 hours on buses. It was long, but the buses are fairly comfortable here, and the coastal scenery is very nice.