Arrival in Hanoi - Vietnam

One can never quite prepare themselves when arriving into a new country. I had pre-envisioned Hanoi according to what pictures and writings I had found in my guide book. But the real thing was quite different. We landed safe and sound and proceeded to Immigration. I had visions of Communist like soldiers coldly glancing at me, my passport, me again and saying that my Visa was not in order... But to my surprise, the Immigration officer was smiling and said "Welcome to Vietnam". He was, by the way, wearing a very communist like uniform, with red star and all, but his smiles warmed the dull colour of his uniform. We got our luggage of a huge conveyor belt and proceeded to meet the taxi driver our hotel had sent. To my relief he was there waving a sign saying Mr Burgess, The Ritz Hotel. On leaving the relative familiarity of the airport, we took our first steps onto "proper" Vietnamese soil. We barely could see where our driver's car was as the air was saturated with a constant mist or fog. We hopped into the car, whilst trying to engage conversation with our driver. Unfortunately he spoke very little English and we had no choice but to follow him. I hoped he was the right guy for the right hotel, as I had read about drivers taking you to a different hotel and cashing in a commission after using the old ruse of "your hotel closed last week, this one is better...". After looking frantically for non existing seat belts, we ventured onto the Highway to Hanoi. Now I had heard about Vietnam's chaotic traffic, but nothing in the world prepared us for our driving experience. It seemed they were hardly any rules, with motorbikes and any other vehicle overtaking on both sides of the car, the horn being used as a surrogate indicator, doing U turns on the highway. And one can only be overwhelmed by the number of scooters on the roads. Not to mention the fact that some had up to four, yes you read right, four passengers on these tiny mopeds! Needless to say were we relieved when we got into one piece at the hotel, which was thank God the right one. JM