There are a couple of cool things about arriving in Hanoi.  It's a comfortingly "human" place.  None of the huge impersonal scale of your Tokyos or Hong Kongs.  The other is approaching an ATM a virtual pauper and at 30,000 dong to the pound becoming a multi millionaire in moments!

Having trousered a few million dong we search out the guy who's come to collect us to take us to the hotel.  This is a really advisable service to take in Hanoi and one that's offerred by even the most lowly B&B.  There are sooooo many small scale, family run, hotels in the old quarter in particular that virtually every cab or bus driver is related to someone who owns one.  Upshot being they'll take you to their mates, mum's, dad's uncle's aunties hotel and tell you it's just changed its name while the place that's been expecting you keeps an empty room.

Safely in the correct car on the way into town we can't help but notice that the streets are crammed with vendors flogging flags, hats and tshirts all emblazoned with the Viet star, those who aren't selling these items are selling horns.....

"what's happening?" we ask.

"Football"...Ahh!

Vietnam play Malaysia in the second leg of the Suzuki cup final tonight in Hanoi. At 2-2  from the first leg the game is precariously poised. 

We can still find our way around Hanoi from our first visit.  A 20 minute walk from our digs gets us to the central lake area where some bars and restaurants overlook what, during the week is a pretty deadly, and it has to be said, an endlessly entertaining 5 lane traffic intersection in which tourists practice their street crossing skills viet style.....ie walk out into the endless stream of motor scooters and hope that, Moses like, they part around you. At weekends or during special events this area becomes pedestrianised and tonight  is just such a one.

Today we have a large stage and screen set up fronting the central city fountains.  As we take our seats in Legends beer hall overlooking the square, a typically oriental, faceless and pretty pointless singer goes through a ghastly song and dance routine of the sort made famous by Cowell and co on a stage backed by a vast screen on which the soccer is to be shown.  He'd be instantly forgettable were it not for the fact that he seems to be over running!   

On a small screen in the bar we can see the viet and malay teams trotting out and doing all that stuff all footballers do, kissing badges, the turf, each other, waving to fans, jumping up and down.  The crowd by the stage catch wind of this and start drowning out skipping boy with a constant blare of horns.  He takes the hint and as the game kicks off on the small bar tvs the town square screen goes.............blank!  A few thousand bitterly dissapointed vietnam fans take out their frustration by hurling bottles etc at the screen, which stays resolutely dark.

The Police here are by and large heavily armed and the crowd disperses and we can see great knots of people gathered around bars as far as the eye can see, clustering for a view of a bar tv screen.  As Vietnam take the lead there's pandemonium!  When the match is won an hour or so later it starts a celebration the like of which I don't think I'm ever likely to see again.  The streets are completely closed by traffic, flag waving, firework firing, horn blaring crowds which continue long into the early hours.  We find a beautiful old french colonial building currently employed as a bar and restaurant.  We grab a couple of seats on a balcony directly overlooking the street and just soak it all up for the next few hours.

Hanoi is a great city. (Full stop!) but it's also a great place to just wander around and take in the sights and sounds.  There's a celebration of the city's ties with France going on and stalls are everywhere selling french produce which is really popular here still.  Good cheese and wine is easy to come by and just strolling around town is a real treat.

We get stopped by a group of Viet girls who wish to practice their english and they giggle and chuckle through a long interview process about our names, our ages "where you fro" etc.  Delightful girls we have a little fun at their expense but stop short of making them practice "Please fuck off" and "would you like a soapy tit wank" as a special greeting for their teacher.

It feels like a real pleasure not to be rushing off seeing "stuff".  Japan was quite tiring and we do want to just spend some time being travellers.  There's lots to occupy us here as we stroll around the wonderful architecture here.  The opera house, the central pagoda, coffee by the lake, a two hour ramble around the bewildering maze of Hanoi old town, stepping over "beer hoi" (impromptu bars set up around a single keg on the sidewalk serving half a dozen punters perched on small plastic stools) sleeping dogs, sleeping shop keepers, shoe shine guys, blokes who will "renew" your trainers, bullet case lighter sellers, cigarette vendors, corn barbeques, pancake makers, train ticket sellers, people who just want to chat....... followed by a nice (and I mean nice!) beer in a very small micro brewery bar, perched on low stools our feet trailing out into the street, chatting with a great couple from Belgium.....

"we don't understand brexit"

"Join the fucking queue mate"

The room in hanoi is fine, the hotel staff probably the most friendly that I have ever met anywhere.  With a nice free brekkie every morning in a roof top breakfast room overlooking the city, our time here is maybe over a little too quick but; we're hots on for our Christmas break and being hugged in the street by the staff as they bundle our gear into the cab for the trip back to the airport, where.....Our flight has been cancelled without any notice to us.  So we need to kill 4 extra hours at the airport, and Hanoi airport isn't exactly built for killing 4 hours!

I just need to mention the weather.  When we arrived in hanoi it was typically dour, but for the last few days we've had flawless blue skies.  Today as we get onto our vietnam airlines flight it's again beautiful and, as we taxi into Danang and are disgorged direct onto the tarmac you can smell the hot macadam of the runways.

The drive from Da nang to Hoi An is interesting, beaches around Da nang and then endless gridlock in the old town of Hoi an.  Every night the place fills with tourists from Saigon, and Nha trang etc.  What brings them is an impossibly beautiful waterfront old town linked by stunning japanes bridges all of which light up with multi coloured lanterns every night. 

The river is filled with candle lit floats, hundreds of boats offer trips along the river, they are lined with paper  lanterns, the shopfront houses on each side are bedecked with lanterns, the bridges are lit above and below it's possibly one of the loveliest things I've ever seen. 

At 8pm last night, it being full moon, the authorities arranged for all electric light to be switched off for 40 minutes leaving the entire waterfront lit by candle and lantern light....magical!  We shared a great meal and a wine or 3 with some new mates Dave and Robyn on a balcony overlooking the river, it was just wonderful.

During the day Kim and I hiked an hour and a half through the old town across rice paddies and over rivers to get to An Bang beach.  It's a beautiful warm day, all of viet life is at work in the streets, the paddy fields are dotted with white cranes, fishing for frogs, bullock drivers wading through the mirror like water and the almost irridescent green of the rice plants.  The beach is a beaut,  golden sand stretching away in each direction, rollers crashing in, a mile and a half of palm rooved beach bars and restaurants, the odd swimming pool, all available for our entertainment and sustenance.  We sit, shoes off, in wonderfully warm afternoon sun, some cool music is playing, we have a couple of ice cold tiger beers for company......it's late December!  .............. We really should be Christmas shopping ...................in horizontal rain!

Our room in The Green Heaven spa is very nice.  The bathroom is bigger than most japanese rooms we enjoyed.  The breakfast buffet goes on for ever.  There are about 30 types of fruit, among the ones I recognise are....apples.  There are 3-4 types of curry, we have noodles, soups, the obligatory egg chef, the bacon eggs etc are all present and correct as is cheese and charcuterie, I've rarely seen a more complete offering at breakfast and we're getting used to setting up for the day and trying to make it through to dinner.

What's not great about the room is that it's not possible to take a shower without flooding the bathroom. We have a whinge but there seems no possible solution, even with access to worlwide technologies to the fact that they've forgotten to put a seal across the bottom of the shower door.  I spend what feels like 9 hours demonstrating the benefits of attaching a seal, I mime a seal, I mime the fitting of a seal and Kim and I take on a long performance using small puppets fashioned from drinking cups, combined with music, song and modern dance which places the seal at the cusp of a new world view paradigm.  We bow at the end, hold it, milking the spontaneous applause, we "defer" to the place that remains seal-less, faces, scant moments ago wreathed in smiles, take on a flat, oriental, devoid of any form of understanding scowl.

Down at the desk they give us a voucher for a couples massage treatment of 1 hour to make up for our trench foot.  We book it and wander off to Ang ban beach for a delicious seafront lunch and stunning weather.

I'm no great lover of a massage to be honest but have been bought up never to look a gift horse in the mouth so....We present ourselves at the Spa in the Green Heaven Resort and indeed ....Spa.

We've actually had some wonderful massage treatments in the past.  The Maldives stands out.  Beautiful diminuitive Ceylonese girls pamperedand preened all around my somewhat ludicrouse rice paper knickers without cackling.  After 45 minutes feeling warmed and weightless afetr some exoert manipulation Kim and I were shown to a huge stone bath filled with fragrant warm water and rose petals, two glasses of champagne bubbled on the bath edge and our girls pointed to a clock...

"No one will disturb you for 20 minutes".... they say with a warm smile and a wink...........Fantastic, just time to read the cricket review on the old cell phone!

In Egypt we had a massage that quite literaly left me in love with the tiny girl who using every ounce of her 5 stone had just effortlessly tied me into a granny knot, a half hitch, slip knot with overhead cam shaft and half lotus with sweet and sour sauce.  

"Would you like to come to England?" I said.

"Oh Please!!" she said.

In my mind I was already considering what I should take out of my luggage so I'd have room to smuggle her back home.

At the Green Heaven Resort and (it has to be said) Spa we're met by a somewhat unsmiling person with a voice like having broken glass pushed into your ear drum.  I think she made us sign release forms in the event of permanent disability.

In the past we've been shown to private rooms to take a shower, a steam, change into the "massage pants".....Here two girls in jeans hold up towels for us to stand behind.....

"Take off your clothes" they order.

I've had the Thai massage, where they walk up your back, on this occassion I think my lady had managed to hide  her pet bullock somewhare in the room.  Face down with my head through the hole in the massage table below me is a saucer with "artistically arranged" rocks, on top of them some one has left an empty snickers wrapper.  My back is being pounded with what feels like mallets she then goes to work with her thumbs.  Such is the pressure she exerts I expect her thumbs to be emerging, Ailen like, from my chest.  I swear this girl could change tyres without tools.  She does something with my toes that feels as if each one is being systematically ripped from it's socket, she tramples up and down my calves, stomps my spine, turns me over, ruptures my spleen.  When she goes to work with the "relaxing" head massage it feels as if my scalp is being removed, then, she finishes up by beating a tattoo on my forehead that actually leaves me with bruises.  A hot towel is put across my face and the girls leave the room.  On the face of it I suppose we're supposed to relax, but, to be honest I'm just praying they don't come back.

We're in a grab taxi, heading to the airport.  The driver has, not a word of English but, to make us feel at home he puts on a collection of "Christmas hits" for us to listen to.  They're not the actual christmas hits but "as rendered by the pop stars of S.E. Asia.  We get the bloody lot! Wham. Slade, Wizzard etc etc all rendered by what sound like 6 year old girls who've been sucking helium.  The effect is like being force fed sugar mice for the entire 1 hour trip.