Day 1 & 2 - Hanoi

Well - we've made it here! It was a pretty long flight- no sleep and longer than I expected. The weather is cool - definitely requiring the warm clothes that I didn't pack!

The company we have gone to work for arranged a car to come and pick us up which was great. He dropped us off at our hotel which is a really nice place! The trip in the car was fun - people drive with their fist on the horn constantly, bikes loaded with families and stock dodging cars and motorbikes, everyone moves pretty slow but do what they want. We have to get used to just stepping out on the road and having everyone weave around us.

We pretty much dropped our bags, had a shower and went outside. We are staying in the Old Quarter which is amazing - overwhelming! So much is happening on the streets - selling, cooking, motorbikes. There are 36 streets in total in this area. Each street has a name that explains what they sell, so one street will just sell shoes, the next silk etc. I thought that this is where we would like to find an apartment when we move here, but it's actually so crazy that we couldn't handle living in this area.

Our old digs from 2003!

This woman was selling these little fried fritters stuffed with pineapple - and fritters stuffed with mince and spinach which chilli sauce.. not the healthy option.

We ended up having dinner at a place that we used to go to last time we were here 7 years ago - it hasn't changed a bit. We had our first Pho, along with some vegies, tofu and steamed rice, spring rolls and a couple of beers - came to a grand total of $5.

When we got back to the hotel there was a message from the company we are working for saying that we were expected in the office the next day! They sent their driver to come and pick us up at 8.15 the next morning and we were taken to a 5 storey terrace in a really cool area. As soon as you get out of the Old Quarter things change so much. I was expiring with excitement looking around the city.

The director of the office lives on the 4th floor of the terrace, and on the 5th there is a cook and cleaner who makes lunch for everyone. The day was good - very productive - they helped us get our sim cards and new phone numbers, arranged a driver and agent to show us apartments and we went and looked at 3 apartments to get a feel of what is around. We really liked the first place we looked at - is was small, two bedroom, lots of light, in really cute tucked away area, fully furnished for $900US per month... it looks as though we will have to pay something like that to stay close to the city centre which is a bit more than I expected.

I have so much update you all on - we cant access facebook here unless it's via our iphone at the moment so it makes it hard to upload photos so it will be this and emails for the time being. We're still jetlagged, and have been up since 4am this morning.. but we're about to go downstairs (with my jar of vegemite) for breakfast and then do some clothes shopping! We had to dump about 15kg of clothes and shoes at the airport so we in dire need! Will back soon!