It's a plane journey to Hanoi...NOOOOO! another one, so much for me travelling without flying. We are nearly ripped off within 30 mins of setting foot outside the airport. $2 for the ride into town which turns into $3 to take us to our hotel - they didn't tell us it costs extra. They also lie about where we are dropped off and take us to the wrong hotel. It's a blatant con, not a misunderstanding or an issue over language, it just wastes our time rather than loses us money, as we see right through it. Not the best of impressions for Hanoi.
It takes us a few hours to sort out our bikes for the trip around North West Vietnam so we don't really get to see any of Hanoi. We hire Russian (Belarus) Minsk 125cc, 2 stroke motorbikes. I am quite nervous, day 5 on a bike, and this really is a motorbike - no automatic clutch this time. It takes time to sort it out - i watch a blind man walking across a 5 way intersection while Darren tries out the bikes. The blind guy walks into EVERYTHING along the way, I'm not sure if he's new at it or just really bad at it, when he reaches the intersection my heart goes in my mouth... the traffic casually goes past him like it's an everyday occurrence.
We get our bikes ready to leave at 6am the next day...that's when everything REALLY starts to go wrong...