First ten days in northern Vietnam

Well, Vietnam's a bit different. Familiar in that it has many similarities with the rest of south east Asia, but very poor and a universe away from London or Beijing.

We've had three particularly nice days here so far.

1. Our first day in Hanoi was an introduction to the sensory overload that is Vietnam. Heat, action, and most of all noise. The Old Quarter consists of narrow streets brimming with trade and thronged with beeping mopeds and hawkers with fruit, flowers, tourist tat or raw meat balanced over their shoulders. If you look up you see a spaghetti of electricity wires everywhere. There's a nice lake and it's easy to find places to stop for a cup of thick Vietnamese coffee or 'the world's cheapest draft beer'. We had bun cha for breakfast, which is grilled pork meatballs in a sweet and slightly sour soup, served with noodles and fresh herbs to drop into the hot soup.

2. Having transported ourselves and our bikes to Cat Ba island via road and ferry we had a lovely one-day boat trip (with just four other tourists) in Halong Bay (see Flickr site). We were very lucky with the weather as the blue sky and green water made the most of the karst scenery and floating fishing communities. We kayaked through a tunnel into a lagoon, swam and then ate a nice fish lunch on the boat.

3. We're now in Ninh Binh, where yesterday we cycled out to an as yet completely undeveloped boat-trip spot called Trang An. For 60,000 dong each (£2 each) we were rowed (sometimes by feet when her arms were tired!) by a little lady in a conical hat for over two hours through karst scenery (but freshwater this time, not sea) including through five or six amazing natural tunnels just high enough for head-clearance. A kingfisher flew around and then landed obligingly on a small tree right in front of us. We also saw red dragonflies (and what we think was their pink larvae), butterflies and mountain goats. Afterwards we rode around a nice village - where a man kindly put a bit of air in Zoe's back tyre and wouldn't hear of any payment - before cycling back to our nice guesthouse through one of the almost-daily torrential rainstorms. Back at the guest house we cleaned our chains very thoroughly with toothbrushes and washing-up liquid before going out for a supper of the local speciality, very chewy goat.