Who should I bump into on a street in Hanoi but Mike, a guy I met 5 months ago in Yangshuo...admittedly, of all the people I was going to come across in Vietnam, he wasn't the least likely candidate, as he has been teaching close to the border and has finished his contract now..but still, one of those small world moments, and so soon after establishing that Helen, the girl I had spent the day before with didn't know James Ashton, whom I had previously been convinced was known to everyone. So Mike decided he wanted to attempt riding a motorbike in Hanoi, and he wanted me to be his passenger. I hesitatingly agreed on the condition that if anything happened to the bike he would take responsibility and that he wouldn't go too fast. It scared the shit out of me- mainly because Mike's sole source of information telling him where he was going was a wooden compass, and because he is pretty clueless and kept trying to drive the wrong way onto roads with concrete barriers in the middle to stop you from switching sides. I decided that walking was my best option before too long.