Driving to the hotel

So we've all heard the stories about traffic in Vietnam. Cars, bikes and buses driving all over....cross the street confidently and traffic will flow around you, etc. We've even seen video clips of the chaos of Hanoi streets. None of that even begins to prepare you for actually being in it. On the way to the hotel from the airport, we were literally clenching our jaws, looking through squinted eyes and squeezing each others hands convinced we were going to kill somebody. It really is mind blowing to witness what is normal driving in Vietnam is. We will try to post a clip this week. It is literally a horn blowing frenzied free for all. Then, all of a sudden, our driver appeared to be a little confused about where he was going. He pulled down this dark (it was the middle of the night) narrow street, drove a little way and then backed up backing through the intersection and continuing to drive in reverse down another alley. Needless to say we were a little concerned, not at all comforted by the fact that our driver didn't speak any English other than "o.k." and if he did he wasn't letting on. After he made a quick call on his cell he was again driving with confidence. We later learned the confusion was caused by the fact that there are two streets with identical or near identical names. Within a few minutes of the call we were at our hotel. Feeling nervous and quite overwhelmed with culture shock, we were greeted at the taxi by Mr. Linh..... Mr. Linh is a Godsend! He definitely made us feel a lot more comfortable. He took us into the lobby and quickly explained what his role will be during our stay, gave us his cell phone number, told us to go up to our rooms and get some rest and said all of our luggage is already there. We hadn't even realized it was gone!