Hanoi is a bustling, exciting city – it exists in a permanent state of organized chaos, with cars, motorbikes, bicycles (with their continuously ringing bells), livestock and man somehow occupying the same space at the same time, yet with surprisingly few obvious accidents. You don’t so much cross the road as become one with it, and upon entering a trance imagine that you are on the other side – sometimes you end up where you intended and sometimes not; it’s part of the mystery that is Hanoi.

Our first afternoon was spent alternately dodging cyclos (tricycle rickshaws) and their owners, who seemed genuinely baffled that any westerner would want to actually walk anywhere. The Old Quarter is beautiful and quiet in comparison, with its winding streets, small courtyards and shops brimming with exotic produce. Each street takes its name from an old merchant guild: bamboo, silk, musical instruments and even coffins. We spent hours meandering, spying into doorways, rifling through jewellery, watching Blacksmiths beating metal and sipping industrial strength coffee from roadside cafes. The White Horse temple on Hang Buom (Sail Merchant Street) with its white haired gatekeepers, houses some grisly antique weapons.

We ended our day sitting by the beautiful Hoan Kiem Lake, tucking into a tasty duck and bamboo shoot soup known as ‘bun mang’, watching the sun set over the old quarter as a steady stream of bicycles floated lazily by. Bliss!

The next day we ‘did’ the museums and other main sights of Hanoi. There is so much to see that we had to make executive decisions, unpleasant but a fact of life for the traveller. We started off our day in the shady courtyards of the Temple of Literature, about 2km from our hotel. Almost a thousand years old, this was a seat of learning for 700 years, and ‘roll calls’ of those who achieved academic distinction are carved on strange tombstones which sit on the back of tortoises.

Next we negotiated with a cheerful scoundrel masquerading as a cyclo driver who took us to our next few destinations at breakneck speed, whilst gesticulating wildly at points of interest along the way. He pointed out the grand Versailles-esque front of the Fine Arts Museum, his cousin’s vegetable stall and a young woman in a short skirt.

Soon we arrived at Ba Dinh Square, the centrepiece of which is Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, a dark, foreboding building. The queue was immense, and we decided to take in the beautiful parkland around us, glancing into Ho Chi Minh’s wonderful wooden stilt house and the peculiar One Pillar Pagoda a short walk away.

Finally we arrived at the entrance to the Mausoleum, where we were grilled as to our country of origin, reasons for visiting and several other random questions, before passing through the imposing entrance. We moved steadily through the dim coolness, up marbled staircases, along polished corridors to the middle tier of the three stories. The burial chamber is dark except for a soft light that seemed to emanate from a shining plinth of black marble. Dressed in a plain tunic and sandals, Vietnam's most famous political figure rests within a glass-framed sarcophagus. It is eerie, quiet, and dreamlike – Ho Chi Minh seemed in person too humble to require all this reverence; indeed apparently his will requested that he be cremated!

That afternoon we also visited the Hanoi Citadel, the beautiful Ngoc Son Temple in the centre of Hoan Kiem Lake (reached by a picturesque red bridge), and the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" (Hoa Lo Prison Museum, also called the Maison Centrale), with its harrowing torture instruments and guillotine.

Bright and early the next day we were picked up by minibus to make the 100 kilometre drive to Ha Long Bay. The bright green rice fields and coolie-hatted farmers painted a picture of rural idyll and we were glad of the respite. Finally we reached the pier, and waiting for us was the most beautiful boat I have ever seen, a genuine Chinese Junk with, what else, bright red sails, unfurled against a brilliant blue sky.

There are innumerable islands in Ha Long Bay, and to really explore would take over a week; sadly, we had one day. Formed by limestone erosion, these unique islands form weird and wonderful shapes with equally bizarre names, “Fighting Cocks” island being my personal favorite. Ha Long itself apparently means, "Where the dragon plunged into the sea." Legend has it that a dragon created the islands as it whipped its tail into the seabed. Whatever created these islands, a mid-afternoon mist made them truly mysterious. We saw beautiful caves, eerie rock formations, hidden coves and floating villages clinging precariously to the sheer cliffs.

For sunset we disembarked and climbed up to a hilltop pagoda, the 400 plus steps causing both of us to stop and wheeze at frequent intervals. It was all worth it to watch the glowing orange sun fade slowly into the mist hovering over the water of the bay. It was pure poetry. After the sun set, the sky and the water slowly merged until it appeared as if the islands hung in a dream.