Hanoi was the first stop of our Vietnamese cross country trip and we spent a couple of days touring the city itself, gawking at how many scooters and motorcycles there are, as well as a couple of day trips out to some of the regional areas. One of my younger sisters’, Jess joined us here and would spend a week with us, from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay.

We stayed at one of the most recommended hotels in Hanoi, discovered after hours trawling Tripadvisor, called Charming 2 Hotel (http://www.hanoicharminghotel.com/charming2.html), and it truly was charming! The girls on the front desk were super helpful and our triple room was spacious, clean and had a great view overlooking the busy street front. Breakfast every morning was delicious (I love pho!) and we were given handwritten directions and recommendations on where to go and where to eat. Highly recommend and it was very well priced as well – think we paid about $90 for a triple room…

We visited a lot of the local Hanoi monuments, and probably my favourite was the Hanoi War Museum, heaps of wartime relics, aircraft and old tanks to look at (Dave particularly enjoyed this).

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