Who's got my heady Banh Mi?

Mary: This morning Sweet D & I prepare to leave Hanoi after three days, and three hotels (first one kicked us out, second one was filthy, third one was - well, if not just right, good enough, though occupied on the first floor by a shifting number of middle-eastern teen gangsters who may or may not have exploded something in the middle of the night). Despite lodging frustrations, I love this city. It is beautiful, peaceful for a city, and we are well situated in the old quarter, right off of a nice lake where the youngsters come to be romantic and the old ladies come to practice dance routines in satin pajamas.

We've been doing it right - we went to the temple of literature, the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum (but only saw the outside, due to the mile-long line of devoted Vietnamese waiting to view the corpse of Uncle Ho), a water puppet show (which made me feel like I finally understood where weird Asian cartoons come from), a surprisingly good jazz club, a famous corner where you can sit on rickety stools and watch the madness of a five-way intersection while sipping 4,000dong beer (about 25 cents)and eating 1,000dong glutinous rice balls (a bit like doughnut holes,filled with a sweet mung bean paste and crusted with sugar glaze and sesame seeds - oh lord, the goodness). We've also eaten food from countless street vendors, and women wandering around with giant baskets of fruit balanced over their shoulders as though they were oxen.

We leave now for Halong Bay, where we will stay on a houseboat for a night and have a chance to kayak around, sail the bay, eat lots of seafood, trek through some caves (or so they say) and in general be spoiled for a few days. Don't worry, only for two, then back to Hanoi for a night to sort things out for the last Vietnamese journey - a trip up north to Sapa, where the H'Mong people live, and where the tiered mountains are famous for trekking and (yes!) cooler weather.

After Sapa, we head into Laos - options abound for the best way to cross the border, and it's hard to know who to trust. Our best bet is other travelers, which also means you - any suggestions?