Hue (26 March – 1 April)
We didn't feel too sorry for ourselves – these things happen, and we had a bus to catch to Hue that night. I can't recommend catching a night bus sitting next to a big Scandinavian guy; as Goran fell asleep, he let his elbows slump and I spent most of the night pinned against the window, struggling to breath let alone getting any sleep. We stopped for breakfast in Hoi An, which is a pretty popular place with tourists – maybe I'll visit next time...

The nightlife in Hue is pretty tame; Saigon is probably the party centre of Vietnam, and it seems to get progressively quieter as you head north. So after a pretty quiet night, we hired mopeds the following morning and headed for Thuan An beach – which is a bit of a trek from the town centre, but a nice ride and a beautiful beach. You can buy snacks from the local kids, who will pester you if the beach is quiet, and drinks and meals from a little cafe that operates near where the path from the road to the beach ends. The rest of the guys took the afternoon train to Hanoi, since they had to get back to Sweden and work, so I was back to soloing it for the rest of my time in Vietnam.

Hue is a great destination for history buffs, given that it was an ancient capital of the Nguyen dynasty. As well as the Imperial Citadel across the river, there's various tombs scattered around the countryside nearby. In my opinion, Khai Dinh is the most photogenic (and is the location of the guardian statues you often see on Vietnam tourism material), comprising of various levels up the hillslope eventually to the tomb itself, while Tu Doc is probably the most serene. I wouldn't recommend riding out to these tombs, though, unless you have your own bike; the seat on my hire bike collapsed on my return journey, and I was forced to get a “shoulder dinky” (not sure what else to call it; I held on to the shoulder of a moto rider, and she dragged me and my bike back to town). An organised bus tour is cheap and probably a better way to see most of the tombs in good time. The Imperial Citadel, and the rest of the old city that surrounds it, can be seen on bike or (as I did) on foot – though you might want to give yourself at least a couple of days to see it at a relaxed pace.

Aside from some of the imposing and beautiful historic buildings, I found Hue pretty dull. Especially at night, there doesn't really seem to be much going on – at least for tourists. I did venture up the road (north, I think), into the residential part of town and found some great food and a late-night bar, but even this was dead. On the last night I met up with a few Europeans in one of the pool bars, and we decided to go in search of a dance club. Instead we ended up in a Belgian beer bar, on what happened to be the owner's last night before his licence was cancelled by the Vietnamese government. For whatever reason (my theory being that they could all speak French, while I couldn't), the owner served the other guys I'd arrived with but refused to serve me, pointing at the clock and telling me it was a private party. To say this annoyed me would be an understatement, and I proceeded to vent my spleen to my new (and increasingly nervous) European friends, not realising I was growling loudly enough to be heard by most of the bar. After 5 minutes I got my first threat from a muscley-looking local, that if I had a problem with the owner why don't I discuss it outside with him? I'm not the fighting type, and thankfully after explaining why I was pissed off, he (amazingly) shook my hand and apologised for the misunderstanding and the owner beckoned me to the bar and offered me a free drink. I thought the trouble was over, but one French guy decided he still didn't like me, getting an inch from my face and shouting that he hated my hairstyle (a bizarre comment in the circumstance, made more so by the fact half his mates standing behind him were as bald as me!) and dismissing me as “just a f###ing tourist”. I would have thought it would have been apparent to him, given the predicament of his bar-owning friend, that all westerners are essentially tourists in the eyes of the locals in this part of the world – whether you're just visiting, or you've lived there for years. I guess that understanding was lost to him in his smugness... His girlfriend eventually dragged him away, and she too apologised to me. Not the ideal end to my Hue visit, and it's probably just as well I was leaving the next day and avoided any nasty re-encounters...

Upon checking out, the hostel manager tried to pull a little scam on me; the official rate for a room is in local currency, of course, but an amount in US currency is also quoted based on a fixed (and common throughout the country) exchange rate that is slightly beneficial to the hotel if you pay in US dollars instead of Vietnamese Dong (this is pretty common in Laos and Cambodia, too, and not really anything to grumble since you can always pay in local currency if you choose). But I was paying in Dong, and he tried to use an inflated market conversion rate from the already-converted US dollar amount instead of just charging me the official rate (i.e. effectively he was calculating my bill by converting from Dong to Dollars back to Dong – both times using his choice of rate beneficial to him). I didn't let him away with it, but you should be aware in advance of how much you should be paying, and not leave it up to the calculator skills of the manager. This probably applies in any country that uses a dual-currency system.

Hanoi (2-5 April)
After an uneventful overnight train ride (although I was disturbed by some of the businessmen who threw their rubbish at, not to, the cleaning lady when she went through our carriage) I arrived in Hanoi, ready for the “multiple hostels with the same name” scam, but still almost falling for it. As far as I know, Vietnam doesn't strongly enforce copyright laws, which means that any decent hostel that develops a good reputation will have it's name copied by dodgier operators keen to cash in – so always make sure you know the address as well as the name of the hostel you're after. As it was, since I'd showed the moto driver the full details, and he'd deliberately taken me elsewhere, I felt justified in walking away having refused to pay him – it's the only way he'll learn!

After being farted around by the manageress of the first hostel I arrived at (who had great rooms, but for some reason couldn't tell me if they were available of not???), I took a chance with another moto driver, and found a spacious room in the Old Quarter at the north end of the city. I saw some other backpackers angrily departing as I arrived, and I maybe should have taken the hint and tried elsewhere... What I quickly found out was that the owner didn't really care so much about filling up his rooms; his main interest was selling tours to visit the hilltribes in the northwest and out to Halong Bay. I played it cleverer than some by expressing an interest in the tours, but claiming (truthfully) that I wanted to sort out my Chinese visa before I did anything else, and managed to last 3 nights before being kicked out a day before I was due to leave Hanoi (when he saw me looking at transport to Laos on the computer)! Some others weren't so lucky, admitting to booking a tour with another agency and finding themselves kicked out of the hostel late in the day. If possible, avoid staying at any hostel that mentions tours at the time of checking-in! Combined with the name duplication thing, accommodation in Hanoi is a bit of a nightmare; you can find good places, apparently, but they seem to be rare.

As for Hanoi itself, it's quite a picturesque, bustling city – the combination of French colonial buildings shaded by trees in certain areas (especially the Old Quarter) might make it one of the prettiest cities in south-east Asia. It has some great historic sights (such as the ancient Temple of Literature, Uncle Ho's vast complex, and sights of interest to Vietnam War buffs), some interesting culture and vibrant street markets. It's a pity about the people. More than any place I'd been to up to this point, or since, I felt surrounded by rip-off merchants and liars – and I'm not just talking about the hostel owners, moto drivers and others in the tourist industries, but even the food merchants and cafe waiters. It might sound surprising, but throughout my travels in south-east Asia, the only places that I was aware of anyone trying to blatantly rip me off (i.e. quoting prices way above what i knew to be the going rate) was in Hue and Hanoi; either the north of Vietnam is dodgy, or the rest of south-east Asia is subtler at fleecing tourists! This was without even going on one of the Halong Bay tours, which are infamous from promising more than they usually deliver, and have been known to lead to violence and death threats if you have the audacity to complain.

Not that I sat in my room feeling sorry for myself; I was stuck there until I could get my Chinese visa or something else came up, so I might as well see the sights. I visited the aforementioned Temple of Literature, founded as a kind of university in 1070, which is interesting due to it's age but not due to the cigarette butts you can find littered around the gardens, pools, and plant-pots. The Army Museum is interesting for the ageing military vehicles and wreckage in the outdoor displays, as well as more educational displays relating to the war of independence from the French and the Vietnam War. The Ho Chi Minh mausoleum and surrounding complex is an interesting place to visit; I can't say I was moved by seeing an embalmed body, but it is certainly a popular place of pilgrimage for people throughout Vietnam. There's a museum inside the complex, which I was expecting to be dominated by propaganda and war memorabilia, but it's actually more of an art gallery; it's still chock full of propaganda, but of the artistic kind rather than political. The overall theme is to show how Uncle Ho still inspires his people, and to present him as the father of Vietnamese creativity and ingenuity. It's endearing in a way.

Because of the overnight train trip when I arrived in Hanoi, I'd lost track of the date. It was only at around 8pm that night that I realised it was my birthday! And I'd commemorated it by viewing a dead body... Feeling a bit stupid, I went in search of a pub or club to at least have a couple of drinks and maybe find a few fellow travellers to celebrate with. I found a place and started chatting with a group of English girls – about five minutes before they had to leave for a previous appointment, and I thought my luck was out. But no sooner had they left than a couple of Swedish-Spanish sisters (along with an English guy and a German-Kurdish guy, who were trying very hard to impress) took their place. I had a decent night after all, although I had to mustered the courage to ask the German (for some reason I was running in to all the weird ones!) to leave after a while, because he was starting to freak both sisters out. Thankfully there were no violent repercussions; I think he was harmless enough, just a little strange/lonely... Although Hanoi does have nightclubs, they're quite far afield from the Old Quarter, so we didn't kick on, instead deciding to meet up the following night – which was to be our last in Hanoi. Alas, I was stood-up (maybe they thought I was as strange as the German?), although they assured me that food poisoning was responsible...

Out of all the places I visited, I'd single out Hanoi as the least enjoyable and endearing. Having said that, I can't rule of that I'll return some day, since I never got around to seeing Halong Bay. But I wouldn't choose to linger in Hanoi, and I chose instead to return to Laos for their New Year celebrations.