Good Morning, Vietnam!

Tess & I must have been a rather dishevelled sight when we shuffled out of arrivals at 6am into the already hot, humid, Hanoi morning. We were met by Loc, our guide for the next two weeks or so and gradually joined by 6 equally tired looking fellow travellers.

The drive to the centre of Hanoi was notable for the cavalcade of motorbikes laden with all manner of goods heading for the early morning markets.

Once at the hotel we crashed out in our room for 6 hours to recover from a lack of sleep and a surfeit of in-flight movies, then walked to the nearby Hoan Kiem lake for a late lunch in a lakeside cafe. We joined the horde of locals and tourists for a Saturday afternoon stroll in the gardens that surround the lake, where I spotted these ladies enjoying a possible pre-wedding photo shoot.

Back at the hotel, after a restorative G&T in the rooftop bar we joined Loc and our now 14 strong group for a pre-tour briefing and an excellent Vietnamese meal, a chance to get to know the rest of our party for the next three weeks. As always we discovered how small a world it is, with two of the group having relatives not far from us in Somerset and one having been brought up in Beckenham, a few miles from Bromley where we grew up.

I've finally had the chance to get on the Internet and post the first of a few backblips.