The taxi driver that brought us to the station was a right rogue, he played that old trick of putting his newspaper over the meter so we couldn't see the price and tried charging us almost double for the journey. We cottoned on though and made sure we saw the price before paying.
He didn't get a tip.
That's pretty much the thing in this country though, everyone is trying to screw the tourists for money. In real terms, we're only talking tens of pence but it's the principal more than anything, nobody likes getting ripped off. When we got to the station, the guy checking our tickets very kindly showed us to the train, which was helpful, but then sat on the seat with us and wouldn't leave until we tipped him. Not content with his pay-off, he then screwed his nose up, held up his palm rubbing his forefinger and thumb the way a dodgy market dealer would do and demanded more. He wouldn't leave until I showed him my [now] empty wallet.
Hanoi is a nice little city, though it would never win any beauty contests it does have a level of charm that Ho Cho Minh didn't have. Maybe it's because there are a lot of older buildings left over from the days of the French occupation, maybe it's because it is so compact and easy to walk around or perhaps it's the warren of little streets that host hundreds of Bia Hoi and Phõ joints. It probably all of those things and it's a shame that we were there so briefly..
We managed to do two of the main trips out of Hanoi. On the first full day we took an excursion to Ha Long Bay which involved a six hour round trip on a bus and four hours cruising round 
the bay on a junk. The bay, although very picturesque, wasn't the most interesting thing for me. I found the floating village nestling among the huge rocks fascinating. Little wooden houses were built upon planks of wood that were just lashed to big blocks of polystyrene. Most of the dwellers are fishermen and their families that are too poor to buy land in the city and who sell their catch to passing tourists and the restaurants back on land. Our boat moored up against one of the 'plots', dwarfing it but causing a flurry of excitement by the people living there. In his little wooden garden he had plots laid out like a vegetable patch but instead of growing cabbages and carrots, he was keeping crabs, clams and fish. He then gave us a demonstration of how to net and kill one of his captives with a large lump of wood and the fluttering fish fluttered no more. The fisherman's dog looked on with a 'more bloody tourists' look in its sleepy eyes.
Some of the other people in the group were cajoled into parting with around $30 for the flaccid fish as well as some other huge sea mollusc after the guide told them that the cook on the boat would prepare it for them for lunch. What she didn't mention was that another little oik would come round demanding more money for cooking it after they polished the whole lot off.
The next day we took a trip to The Perfume Pagoda which in some ways was much nicer; involving a long bus ride through some little villages and countryside scattered with paddy fields. We then had to get on a little boat where a young lady rowed us for an hour to the pagoda. Our tour guide, Kinai, was possibly the worst I've ever come across and was constantly disappearing whenever we needed him most. The first time, at the pagoda, he was nowhere to be seen while some ticket inspector was demanding that we buy tickets despite them being included in our tour price. Kinai came shuffling down the hill, singing, without any cares other than how his carefully coiffured hair or fake D&G shirt looked. He was only 24 and told us that he's in a boy band and will one day be famous. When asked what instruments his band played he looked confused and said that they just sing and dance. Funny sort of 'band' if you ask me.
The pagoda itself was interesting but that was more to do with all the Buddhist monks performing some sort of ceremony. I've no idea what it was about as Kinai was useless and couldn't explain it, but the singing and incense burning was very atmospheric. A cable car took us to the top of the mountain to see the cave that's used for prayers and Kinai warned us not to take photos inside as it would offend the people praying. Once inside he asked us if we wanted him to take photos of us.
The next time he did his disappearing act was on the return trip back in the row-boats. The girls rowing, despite having been paid by Kinai, were demanding tip money. I gave them what I thought was a generous tip of 40% of the boat trip price and she insisted on five times as much! I couldn't believe it, we told her where to go and marched off to find Kinai. When talking to the others, some were saying that their rower wouldn't even take them ashore unless they got a good tip. I think we got away lightly.
On the bus back, Kinai wanted some feedback about our feelings for the way the trip went and what we thought of him as a tour guide. There was just silence from everyone while we all squirmed in our seats and looked out of the window or stared at our feet. One French woman eventually piped up and told him that he should stick to singing. Very embarrassing but highly amusing. Like a worn out puppy after an exciting day Kinai slept on the front seat of the bus for the rest of the journey.
Hanoi, due to the number of tourists and abundance of watering holes, is a great place to go out drinking. We spent some time on all three evenings mixing with the locals and other foreigners at the so called Bia Hoi Junction which is a crossroads surrounded by half a dozen or so little drinking joints. Miniature plastic furniture lines the curbside and pavement and a stout, often very hairy woman mans the beer pumps. It's great fun until a police van turns up and the whole party is cleared away in seconds while the officials look on with accusatory eyes. Apparently the authorities are trying to keep the place from becoming the debauched and hedonistic Gomorrah that Ho Chi Minh has seemingly become. It just added to the excitement.
On our last day we spent the afternoon ambling around the city to kill a couple of hours before leaving for the train. I love doing that as we had no real plan other than just wandering and looking. It's great to be in a city where chickens wander the streets like tourists, some of them so scrawny they've hardly a feather to their name. Their fates are pretty much sealed to the chicken soup restaurants around which they roam but at least you know it's fresh.
We are now in Nanning in China and have been ushered off the train for a couple of hours. The reason? Who knows, this is China. We were lead to a big hall full of huge, bright yellow armchairs and told to wait. We nipped out to find some breakfast and had a sort of steamed patty stuffed with Chinese cabbage and spices then fried. Sounds vile but was delicious. A family of grossly overweight Chinese people are travelling on our train and one of the kids has just been beaten on the back by his mother for dropping something. The poor kid is inconsolable while his mother spits abuse at him from her fat, swollen lips and his aunts look on laughing. You don't need to be Freud to imagine what that kid is thinking right now.
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