After a 28 hour bus ride hour (we were expecting 22-24 hours) we arrived in Hanoi around 11 at night. Since beginning traveling we have gotten a little used to arriving at the most inopportune time and this had to rank up there. We went through the usual routine of pulling the bikes off the roof of the bus, checking to make sure they are still in one piece, and putting our luggage back on the bike. Then it is a mess of trying to navigate the map in the dark and trying to find a hotel that hasn't closed up for the night. The first few we tried we struck out at but at about 2 we finally found a place that would take us and so we laid down our tired heads for a well deserved rest.

We had chosen to stay in Hanoi's Old Quarter, a bustling commercial district, and although we couldn't have guessed it at night once we woke up and ventured out in the day light it was exactly that; bustling. Quite a fascinating district really. There are 36 streets in the area and each used to house a guild (group of merchants) who all sold the same thing. So if you understand Vietnamese (which we don't) you realize that each street is named according to the product that used to be sold on that street. These days things have been all scattered about but still there are some streets that remain unchanged. The street that houses the gravestone engravers is one interesting example.

We decided to make Hanoi our home base for the next 10 days or so. There were some side trips we wanted to make into the surrounding regions and Hanoi seemed a good place to come back to and recoup.

But before heading off to the provinces we spent a day or two getting to know the city.

Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and as the heart of the North, the winner of the war, one would expect it to be the heart of all things Vietnamese. However, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), in the south, in spite of losing the war is really the economic heart of Vietnam. This has prompted some Vietnamese to say that in the end the South won the war anyway. While HCMC is the economic capital, Hanoi does really embody the spirit of a capital city. It has beautiful parks, diplomatic quarters and lots of monuments. We explored them all, on foot and by bike, and really found the city to be a nice one. An that was good because we were to return here after our first side trip to Halong Bay.