Will was certain that he can handle it so we went ahead and rented a motorbike in Hanoi – the craziest traffic city I have seen yet. I am still alive as I am writing it, but each ride out to town is certainly a major thrill in and of itself – a feat of weaving and honking and map navigation. We went to the Russian restaurant again about a 20 minute drive through the city as our first riding exercise and both got a bit of a cold. Recovered quickly and shortly after bought ourselves jackets and Will bought a pair of pants to keep warm – this ain’t no tropical paradise like Vanuatu and does get really chilly in winter on a motorbike. I have tried own a traditional Vietnamese dress which I am now deliberating whether to buy or not. Looks really cool and unusual but whether I will ever have a chance to wear it is questionable.

Another victory of the day is shipping off 4kg of our own STUFF (books, clothing, souvenir picture, cables, etc) that we no longer need in our travels. Cost us US$50! That’ll teach us bringing a stack of books with us to travel. But on the other hand having books to read and reading every day has also been a blessing and I have finished 3 books (one of them 1000+ pages!) since the start of the travel not even a month ago. We also STOLE one book that I always wanted to read a couple of weeks back from a hotel in Siem Reap: Desmond Morris’s Peoplewatching- all about human behaviour and body language. Promises to be a fascinating read but I haven’t started on it yet.