The rain stopped pretty soon this morning so I went exploring and after about 2 hours of getting lost I finally found the language school! Took me a while as the map from the hostel only goes as far as the park near the language school, and the map in my guidebook has very few street names so is pretty useless when walking through streets laid out like a grid. I navigated as far as the park no probs, then tried to walk down a street supposedly alongside it to get to what I believed was the street I was after. The street got quite narrow and windy after a while though and looked to be pretty non-touristy so I turned around and went back to the park. I then walked all the way around it (so instead of just walking along one side of it and getting to the school I walked around 3 sides. And it is a BIG park) asking random people where the street was. The street was pretty long and wide so it took me a long time to actually find the school but now I know where it is it should be easy to find again. I then walked back towards the old quarter where my hostel is (the short route this time!) and on the way I came across a shopping centre with a bunch of branded things from Europe and America. Was very strange as the streets all around are crammed with little local shops and street vendors selling food and stuff, and then there's a big air conditioned shopping centre!

I walked around the old quarter for a bit just trying to get used to it all. It is still a crazy crazy place as far as I'm concerned. You will be walking along the pavement and then suddenly you are forced into the road as there are scooters/shops/people eating/big holes making it impossible to continue on the pavement! Am getting better at crossing the road though and dodging the motorbikes. They drive like crazy here anyway so I guess after driving the wrong way down a one way street, mounting the pavement, cutting up a bus, veering in and out of all the traffic and drifting across to the other side of the road its fairly easy to dodge a pedestrian. The only scary moments when crossing are when you are crossing a busy road with an endless stream of traffic bearing down on you. Quite often at the busy junctions they have a semblance of traffic lights and so there will be a little green man when it is safER to cross but even then you may still encounter people coming straight at you on the wrong side of the road.

Have been out this evening to try and find something to eat. Don't want to resort to KFC so was trying to find somewhere cheap and Vietnamese to eat. It's quite hard to tell where's good, and also what the food is if the people at the stall don't speak English however in the streets around the lake in the old quarter there are a least English translations if not English speakers. Ended up in some random shack eating rice, unknown vegetables and chewy pork ribs, with a drink, for less than 2 quid. There were a couple of Australians there who joined me to eat and told me all about Halong Bay so when I get round to making my way out there I have some tips on what to do.

I think I am slowly beginning to get the hang of how it all works here!