After flying for 15 hours and arriving in Kuala Lumpur, its good to find that some things are the same the whole world over.

The first is if you want to see opulent wealth if you want to see how the rich are doing in whatever city you find yourself in, just head for the nearest head office of any bank you care to mention. Because here you will find every type of flashy car you can think of in the car park, you will see smart suits walking in and out of the front doors, held open by uniformed doormen who salute as the suits pass. There will be a nice well-maintained garden around the property and a fence or wall around that with a manned gate and gatehouse, there will be security officers in immaculate, starched outfits there to keep the poor on the outside.

A well-used phrase nowadays is that the "banks run the world” which of course is probably not exactly correct, but when you see these powerhouses you could be forgiven for thinking it is.

I guess 20 or 30 years ago this powerhouse image gave the customer, the poor person, a degree of reassurance that their money was in the hands of professional experts. Today, sadly to customers it just shouts "greedy, self-centred, thieving bastards”. Which I guess could be as accurate as the statement “banks run the world”, but when you see these powerhouses you could be forgiven for thinking it is.

Apart from the powerhouse bank head offices, there is another thing that is constant around the world, coffee or to be more exact the language of coffee. Its this language that has succeeded where Esperanto failed as a universal language. Years ago coffee was translated into every language known to man some it was easy to work out, but others you needed an in-depth knowledge of that language just to order a cup and you could forget to ask for milk or black and any thought of ordering a latte was just that, a thought.

Today that has all changed no one or no country translates coffee into their own language, wherever you are coffee is just plain simple coffee. On this trip around Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Mongolia coffee was indeed coffee and what’s more, the latte was a latte, Americano was Americano, and the cappuccino was a cappuccino, black was without milk and with milk was with milk. So today its possible to walk into a cafe in London, New York, Beijing, Hanoi, Sydney, or Ulaan Baatar and order a coffee in any form you like.

Having said that in Vietnam its possible to get egg coffee made with you guessed it coffee, eggs, condensed milk and cheese. Now I am sorry, but in anyone's language, this is just plain wrong. Its as though the Vietnamese have tried to combine all the best bits of breakfast into one drink, they obviously haven’t heard that it's been done already, its called a fruit smoothy.

Another thing about coffee is that the places where it is sold have become the global office. Around the world in trendy cafes with brick faced walls and strange art hanging on the walls, you will find young and the not so young next big things, sitting at a table nursing one cup of coffee and working their laptops whilst maintaining their cool in the perfect air-conditioned environments. 

If anyone is interested you make egg coffee by first brewing a cup of coffee, obviously, in Vietnam, they used Vietnamese coffee which has a slightly bitter chicory taste, apart from the stuff that has first past through a weasel, but let's not go there. I actually don’t think the type of coffee makes much difference considering what you are about to do to it. You then take the yoke of an egg and whisk it into a foaming emulsion and pour on top of the coffee, the heat from the coffee then helps the foaming emulsion to set slightly. Then if you are really hardcore you add cream cheese on the top and place under a grill for a few seconds, and why wouldn’t you.

Question….

What do you do if you just happen to have the tallest flagpole in the world, plonked to one end of a square in your capital city?

Answer...

Stick the worlds largest flag on top of it, that’s what you do.

(Merdeka Square, Kuala Lumpur).

Flagpoles to one side Kuala Lumpur, or KL as we travellers like to call it, has a couple of other tall things, of which it is very proud of. Not least is the two skyscrapers that make up the Petronas Towers, which for a few years was the tallest building in the world. It is still the tallest twin towers in the world, probably, or at least the tallest in South East Asia, but definitely the tallest in Malaysia, certainly in KL.

They are magnificent to see, day or night, they make a breathtaking cityscape. What KL lacks in natural beauty such as Cape Town, Rio and Sydney, they certainly make up with the towers. They are special at any time of the day, but at night they are just WOW. The good folk of KL adore them and it's easy to see why they are their north and south poles, they stare at them, they navigate by them, they meet under them, they drink, dine and romance with them.

To the people of KL, they are just awe-inspiringly tall and I have to say, even though I am twice as tall as the average person from KL they equally seem awe-inspiringly tall to me, I feel exactly the same as they do about them. 

But, it turns out that it's not just tall flag poles and tall twin towers, KL has the 7th, yes the 7th tallest communication tower in the world. On top of the tower is a revolving restaurant, which is, without doubt, the highest revolving restaurant on a communication tower in KL, certainly in South East Asia and maybe the world. The restaurant itself is a little over the top in a sort of 70’s disco way, its the sort of place John Travolta in his white suit, swishing his hips and humming Night Fever wouldn’t be out of place in. It's all chrome, mirrors and purple lighting. The evening meal is in the form of a buffet, which if I am honest is not my preferred dining option, but what makes this interesting is the fact that your table rotates around the tower, whilst the buffet stays still in the centre. Which means every time you want to refill your plate you literally have to go hunting for your food because it will have moved. Then with a plateful of food, in the low light disco of a restaurant, you have to then find your table again, dodging a hip-swishing John Travolta. We found it paid to always have one of us sitting at the table to act as a spotter and land mark for the returning hunter-gatherer. 

There is a lot of buildings being constructed around KL and all of them seem too high rise something or another, no one seems to be building just a house, or even a small shopping centre or office block. It does seem that if you are going to build in KL today you start by digging a massive hole, about 50 meters deep and at least the size of a football pitch, this will be your footings.

So Malaysia, or at least KL is a place of tall buildings and things, which I guess is a sort of counterbalance to the population, who are short. As I discovered this shortness can catch you out at times. For example, if a guy goes to a toilet for a pee in most countries of the world, there will be a line of urinals which are at the adult height and one a lot lower for kids and Ronnie Corbett look likes. In Malaysia, it's the other way around.

There is no end to Malaysia’s amazing things as soon after leaving KL we were to find ourselves in the oldest rainforest in the world and walking on the lowest canopy walk in South East Asia, I think.

Its not every day you can honestly say that a bit of computer and satellite jiggery-pokery is your hero, but in the case of driving for the first time in Malaysia  and on a journey that would take us from the foot of the Petronas Towers to the entrance of the oldest rainforest in the world, at Taman Nagara, our Mr GPS was most definitely our hero.

As we started our journey in our hire car, during the morning rush hour and in the shadows of the tallest twin towers in KL, possibly Asia, that just meant one thing. Lots of traffic and lots of road junctions, okay that is two things, but most certainly linked. After several attempts to get Mr GPS to talk to us and some rather dodgy directions given to us by a policeman of all people, we eventually managed to get a route out of the city. This is when we first started to worship Mr GPS as he started his elevation into becoming a hero. For without his calm instructions when all around him was panicking, I am sure we would have died of starvation in a stationary car, which had run out of petrol on one of the many multi-lane highways, that seem to have 24-hour traffic jams.

As a whole the Malaysian driver is not that bad, certainly far worse was to come on this trip. They actually seemed to drive by something bordering on recognisable rules. Which suggests most of them have actually passed some sort of a test, again something that was extremely doubtful later in our journey. Although in KL all you need to be a driver is patience as going somewhere is a very slow draw out affair.

Once out of the city it was amazing how quickly we moved from urban to rural, KL rapidly slipped into our memories as new interesting vistas appeared one after the other. Village after village and small town after village gave us something new to look at with a welcoming frequency. Some of them were pretty and tidy some were outright tatty, but all were interesting. Lunch was not so much street food, but highway food as we sat on a bench next to a major road. Sliced mango, a steamed bun with beans inside, XXL prawn crackers and a flashback from our youth, Iced Fancies.

Then just 6.5 hours after leaving KL we arrived at Taman Nagara, which Mr GPS assured us at the start of the journey would only take 3.5 hours. What went wrong?

A few days later I think history repeated itself as we drove with Mr GPS’s help from Taman Nagara to the Cameron Highlands. A journey that Mr GPS said would take another 3.5 hours and as it was only 360 kilometres I was inclined to believe him. I was wrong and so was he because it actually took 8.5 hours of total travel time. That said it was worth it, albeit very twisty and tiring, as the road seemed to literally wind itself up to the top of the highlands. The rainforest touched the sides of the road for most of the way and at times leaned right over the road to form a green tunnel. In places the tunnel became so dense that Mr GPS constantly lost his way, but not once did he lose his temper staying calm and when the time was right would say confidently, "re-calculating".

It's fair to say that by the time we got to our destination, the highland town of Ringlet, we were done in and it was the fault of the never-ending twisty, bendy road, as we clambered over the highlands. I say that, but to honest we could have been anywhere, all we could see was trees.

Like all good ideas, this seemed like a good idea when we decided to do it, but like a lot of good ideas, it wasn’t long before it became a bad idea. Perhaps that is a little harsh, it was a magic experience and as we drove away and headed for a comfortable hotel in Malacca, it became more and more magic.

Okay, what was it like, well for a start of the place was called, “The Rainforest Inn” and guess what, it was bang in the middle of a tropical rainforest.The property was built on aboriginal tribal land and run by one of the guys out of the tribe, the rest of his tribe lived a short distance away just down the dirt track.

The “Inn” consisted of a number what is best described as sheds built on stilts, constructed of bamboo poles. They even had bamboo pole floors which means you could see straight through them, in fact, you could also see straight through the walls. So lying in bed you can see the jungle below you and to the sides. I say jungle as that is a far better descriptive word than forest, which gives the impression the place maybe enchanting.

Our shed was right next to a jungle river and waterfall and I know what you are thinking, “how romantic”, hold that thought. Our first thoughts were how great it would be to swim in the river, shower under the waterfall and we were told we could if we wanted to. But, it came with a warning that frogs frequent the area around the river and waterfall. I know what you are thinking why do you need a warning for frogs and the truth is you don’t. But you do for the poisonous snakes that come to hunt the frogs.

Then at night the river and its bloody waterfall keep you awake, eventually, gives you a headache and ultimately make you want to go for a pee. Which now means you have to make a 50-meter dash from your shed to the toilet shed and this is where you become the pray of the animals that lurk in the jungle. Now before your mind gets carried away we are not talking scary tigers, we are talking tiny bugs, but millions of them. I know tigers are big and these things are tiny, but believe me, this is one example where size really doesn’t matter.

Our collection of sheds was about 25 kilometres as the bugs fly from the nearest town Ringlet, 1500 meters above sea level in the Cameron Highlands. At this altitude, things are cooler and mornings and evenings are misty, all of which makes it unique in Malaysia and is the reason so many Malaysians come here for a short break and to escape the heat. The highlands are incredibly fertile and on every scrap of land, they are busy growing stuff. every type of vegetable known to man and a few that aren’t are grown here in biblical proportions.

The vegetables are grown in everything from ancient, picturesque mountain terraces full of lush green watercress, to massive poly tunnels pumping out tomatoes, beans and salad products none stop all year round.

Flowers are force grown also in large polytunnels with masses of lights on during the night to kid them its day time all the time. These are destined for the Japanese market. Then they seem to have some sort of fetish for strawberries, they are grown everywhere and because of the climate can be grown all year round. Then there is the tea, grown in beautifully manicured grounds, each with an old colonial feel about it. But the latest mass crop to hit the ground here is large hotels and I mean large almost Las Vegas size. Which gives you some idea of how many locals come here to escape the heat. I am sure there will come a day when the tea plantations have been replaced with massive concert hotels, but equally, I am sure they will still be growing strawberries.

It's all quite a sight, it's even impressive, but it comes at a massive cost to the environment, its a blot on the landscape for sure and the rainforest has certainly met its match here when it comes to encroaching.

There really is just one road up to the highlands, which then runs across the top of the highlands linking a number of towns and back down the other side. As a result, the road is incredibly busy. Firstly the areas fleet of old Land Rovers scurry all over the highlands delivering their loads. They try to drive fast, but when that inevitably fails the drivers use either death-defying manoeuvres or inventive shortcuts, for example through a car park, all so they can get one or two vehicles further along in the slow moving traffic jam. add to them a great many coaches bringing the locals for their break in the cooler weather. Add to these all the service vehicles that have to bring just about everything up to the towns along thread over the highlands. All the petrol has to come up in tankers, the thousands of spares for the ageing Land Rovers have to come up with trucks, building material, food, clothing everything has to come by this road. Then there are the likes of us, foreigners inhere cars either lost or getting confused by Mr GPS and finally there are the daily commuters who either liven the highlands and working the lowlands or vice versa.

The commuters in the main appear to be of the executive type, judging from the cars they drive and to be fair unless you had a top job with top wages why would you want to drive this road twice a day. Its because they drive the road twice a day that they take what appears to be ridiculous risks, overtaking where it seems madness to attempt. Okay, they probably know the road like the back their hand, but I bet they can’t predict what is coming around the bend towards them. They drive fast, far too fast for the conditions as they make the 40 to 50-kilometre trip upon down the highlands. I couldn’t imagine taking that sort of journey twice a day, why would you want to take so many potentially fatal decision after a long, hard day at work.

Driving and encroaching vegetable and massive hotels to one side, the people of the highlands seem to be a happy lot. I guess that is why so many people come here, for the cool weather and sleeping soundly at night without air conditioning and breathing in the crystal clear fresh mountain air, or at least the bits that don’t have vast clouds of toxic black fumes left behind by the struggling Land Rovers.

Several years ago I spent a few days at Addo Elephant Park in South Africa, its a large national park dedicated to saving the one time endangered Eastern Cape Elephant. Driving to and from the park each day from the accommodation, I had to pass a dead donkey that had just been left by the side of the road, where I guess it had died. Over the time I was there the carcass slowly disappeared, although the smell lingered a lot longer.

It was quite a sad thing and I dreaded driving past the body several times a day, it got me thinking what had the poor old donkey done to deserve the life it has. In the main, it is the go-to workhorse for most of the third world, where daily its loaded up with unbelievable amounts and worked all day from morning to night. I can’t be sure, but I am reasonably confident that the poor animal doesn’t get looked after properly. Gets feed just enough food to stay alive, gets water where it can, never has his feet or teeth looked at and has no concept of what a vet might be. Yet despite this, every day it carries on loyally working for its masters until that is it can’t go on anymore. How does the master repay a lifetime of hard work, well he abandons the animal where it dragged in its final lung full of air. In the case of this particular donkey that happened to be on the side of the road leading to the park.

So what has this got to do with the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia and the answer is simple, they also have donkeys that they load up with impossible loads and work them from early morning until late at night. Except these are not living, breathing things, but mechanically propelled vehicles called Land Rovers. Just like donkey’s they don’t get looked after very well, if at all. They are given just enough fuel to run on if they are lucky they get water to top up their radiators every now and again and they have no concept of what a Land Rover Service Centre is. In fact, despite the fact that there are 7,000 old Land Rover rolling around the Cameron Highlands, there is no Land Rover dealership, they are forgotten Landies in the mists of the highlands.

The Cameron Highlands has a population of about 30,000 people and between them, they own 7,000 Land Rovers, that’s 1 Land Rover for every 4.28 people. That has got to be one of, if not the highest ratio of Land Rovers per head of population of anywhere in the world. Yet no Land Rover dealership. The Land Rovers were in the main left over by the British army after they had finished fighting the communist uprising in Malaysia in the early 1960’s. Mostly long wheelbase pickups, they trundle along the road in the highlands delivering anything to anyone. The drivers, often the owner of the vehicle and the vehicles are for hire for anything, I suspect legal and illegal. They can be seen hauling vegetables, large rolls of plastic pipes, furniture, bags of fertilisers, goats, sheep and of course boxes and boxes of strawberries.

They are classed officially as agricultural vehicles and as such enjoy tax and fuel cost breaks, but in return, they are only allowed to operate in the Cameron Highlands. To ensure they do not stray out of the highlands each one has to have a large CH on its doors. To be honest, I have no idea why they need the CH, I mean these things could not make it out of the highlands. If by some miracle one of them managed to roll down the hill to the lowlands without its breaks failing and ending up in a ditch, it sure as hell could never make it back up into the highlands.

Even if you don’t see one for a few minute, you will hear one and you will certainly see the big plume of black smoke that comes out of the back of each one of them. First thing in the morning as the mist clings to the rainforest covered hillsides, along with the roads you will find Land Rover after Land Rover, left dumped on the side of the road. Just like my sad donkey outside Addo National Park. For these, too at some stage the day before had dragged their last gulp of fuel into their engines. However, unlike the donkey, they will live again, once someone can get them to one of the many back street mechanics who will work some sort of a miracle on them.

Come to think it, although there is no Land Rover dealership in the highlands, its got to be the best place to own a Land Rover of any age. There must be a lot of experienced guys in the back streets all capable of working the type of miracle that’s needed to keep one running.

If could be argued that the French have a lot to answer for, take Plastic Bertrand for example, okay he was born in Brussels but he sang in French and that’s good enough for me. Ca Plane Pour Moi. Then there were the atrocities they committed, like so many European empire builders across South East Asia promoting the French way. But what they can be extremely proud of, is bringing the humble baguette to the area and in particular Cambodia and to be exact Phnom Penh and to be totally accurate the “La Safran Hotel”.

For it's in that hotel lovely, the peaceful garden restaurant in the balmy heat of a Phnom Penh evening that was being pushed around by an old colonial ceiling fan, that I dined on an enormous and well constructed Parisian Salade. Accompanied by two glass of chilled Sauvignon Blanc and a bread basket of perfect, warm, crisp, light French bread served with called salted butter on a clean white plate. In a word perfect.

Cambodia as country prides itself on the ability, first to catch, then cook and eventually eat every sort of bug you can think of. They go simply crazy for scorpions, spiders, big black beetle type things and of course crickets, which I can personally vouch for as being excellent with a chilled beer.

So how in amongst all this crazy, weird culinary activity do they managed to produce perfect French baguettes? English supermarkets can’t and they have spent a fortune trying, some of those supermarkets don’t forget are only 22 miles from France.

Okay, I am now beginning to think that this romantic vision of the traffic in South East Asia is like a giant shoal of fish swimming in a coral reef is not a good one. It may be true in the cities, but even then it only works if you are a minnow, in other words, a motorbike. If you happen to be a bigger fish its a lot quicker to walk.

Outside of the cities on the open roads this “no rules” way of driving really shows its downsides. Here being a minnow is less important, here you would think it would pay to be a tuna, fast, sleek and manoeuvrable able to outrun the minnows and dodge the whales, or lorries as we know them. Or at least that is what you would expect to happen, except here in South East Asia it's not the case, because the “no rules” method of driving really cripples any form of pleasant driving experience.

The shoal like “no rules” driving means that a journey of 150 kilometres on reasonable to good roads, with light to medium density traffic, will take at least 4 hours. That is an average of 20mph. Why? The road system and layout are the same as anywhere else in the world and I know drivers here, like everywhere else have to have driving licenses and so at some stage must have passed some sort of a test. I am presuming that as an absolutely basic level that test would include rules like which side of the road to drive on, who has the right of way at junctions, which lane slow vehicles should drive in, which lane is for overtaking and what a zebra crossing is painted on the road for.

But “no rules” driving means all of that has been thrown out of the window once you have your licence, which means this dance the minnows perform in the cities when transferred to the open road becomes an absolute pain. On the open roads minnows with their clapped out, low powered motorbikes ride 3, 4, and 5 abreast making themselves a big object which is travelling very slowly on the otherwise open roads. Some minnow and the occasional tuna can be found driving the wrong way on the wrong side of the road and not always hugging the kerb. I suspect the reason for this is that at some stage within the next 5 kilometres they intend to turn left and can’t see the point in driving on the right side of the road, as at some stage they will need to cross the road to make their turn. At other times a minnow will ride in the centre of the road or in the outside lane if there are two lanes, even though their absolute maximum speed is 40kph when going downhill with the wind behind them.

So the “no rules” for of motorbike riding causes lots of problems for other users on the open road. But they are not alone, by a long way. some car drivers sit in the fast lane and religiously stick to 30kph no matter how long the queue of other traffic is behind them. Furthermore, they will do this whilst driving alongside a sixteen wheeled lorry travelling just a few kilometres an hour slower. This will go on indefinitely until I guess one of them runs out of fuel,w which then causes other road users to take all sorts of dangerous manoeuvres in order to take evasive action or simple make progress.

Pulling away from traffic lights some sixteen wheeled articulated whales have better performance than BMW type tuna’s, with drivers who think if okay to accelerate like a snail getting up in the morning after a particularly heavy nights sleep.

“No rules” driving means that people undertake, overtake and mount kerbs at a blink of an eye. cars. lorries and motorbikes just drive where they like at whatever speed they fancy. This complete lack of any kind of driving rules ultimately means no one goes anywhere very quickly. Its true, you could easily say that despite this lack of rules, there is no road rage, nobody bucks the trend, everyone just stays calm and works their way through the mess that is created with “no rules”. But this calmer than calm approach to driving havoc leaves the door open for drivers to be pushy, in exactly the same way pedestrians on the streets of old town Hanoi, push past you or barges in when you are in a queue.

On the road, if someone wants to overtake they don’t wait for a suitable gap to appear they just pull out and do it. They know that “no rules” driving means everyone will keep calm and take evasive action to avoid a head-on crash, leaving you to carry out unbelievable overtaking manoeuvres. this evasive action, of course, has a ripple effect, one car will just pull out to overtake, a car on the opposite side of the road will swerve to avoid an accident.In making the swerve they will break hard, robbing the driver behind of any safety margin. That car behind the swerving car will also have to break hard and so will every car behind until the ripple effect has worked itself out. But, no one gets annoyed, no one says “WTF does he think he is doing".

So this calmer than calm, no road rage response to “no rules” driving works, indeed you couldn’t have “no rules” driving without other drivers having zero road rage. That is what is wrong with South East Asian drivers. Perhaps someone should introduce a bit of road rage, some aggressive light flashing and horn blowing, someone and two-fingered gestures, maybe that would teach these people that their driving is crap and they should go back to the basics.

Then you might just be able to drive on a good, quality dual carriageway with a speed limit of 110kph, in a decent car, in the fast lane and achieve more than 35kph.

Beep, bloody beep.

Do you find it irritating when rugby players try to hide their mouths with either their hands, arms or rugby balls so that when they pass on secret tactical options to other players they stay exactly that, secret? I have to say I haven’t seen the England footballers do this, but I guess they have to develop some tactics first before they can pass them on. Well, anyway I have a solution to this problem and its the South East Asian face mask.

Why do so many people in South East Asia wear these bloody masks, are they all wannabe medical doctors and have kitted themselves out ready to perform a medical procedure at the drop of a hat? Are they to keep germs in or out, I suspect they are not very good at keeping them out as they don’t seal properly around the face. They are better at keeping them in, for example when you sneeze or a cough and can’t be bothered to put your hand over your mouth, so are they an aid to lazy Asian sneezers?

I think its just a habit that caught on during the various flu epidemics in Asia and people just can’t let it go. If they are to protect people from airborne infection, why do wives wear them and husbands don’t and vice versa? Why do mothers wear them and children and babies do not, surely airborne infections are not fussy, they will attack anyone.

Are they in danger of a producing a generation of children who grew up never seeing their mothers faces, never seeing a smile, never exploring her facial expressions, never learning whether they have please, offended or annoyed their mothers.  where children never see where their mother's comforting voice comes from, never explores the movements of the mouth when words are formed.

Do they wear the masks all the time or just when in public places, because again I think airborne infections don’t know and don’t care whether they are in a public place or someone's front room? Its crazy, its a habit, its an addiction and like all people with addictions they may well need help.

South East Asia seems to the novice eye to have this frantic traffic problem, its as though any rule book there may have been regarding driving on a road had long since been thrown out. The cars and multitude of small motorbikes are like shoals of fish moving through a vast coral reef. I am sure if you were to get into the middle of a large shoal of fish you would not see the fish bumping into each other because they just don’t, meaning there are some rules within the shoal even if they are not apparent to us. The same with the traffic in South East Asia, you see very few accidents and there must be some rules which are not apparent to us foreigners. Put another way driving here is like taking part in a very complicated dance in which everyone knows their steps, but to an onlooker, it looks chaotic.

But in the old quarter of Hanoi, it's not just the traffic that effortlessly mingles and somehow comes out the other side unscathed. The people do as well, obviously, the locals are better at it than us, but it's amazing how quickly you can get into the swing of it. Crossing the road is a case of just walking off the road without waiting for a gap in the traffic and then walking slowly across the road, making no unpredictable moves so that the traffic can weave around you. It's actually best just to stare straight ahead and not look at the traffic at all. What amazes me is that there are not lots and lots of fatalities involving South East Asia people on holiday in New York, or London, or Sydney or the mother of everything that is right, Singapore.

On crowded footpaths it's the same as crossing a road, you take your time, slotting into spaces as they open up, keeping an eye on the point at which you want to get to and walk towards it making way for people crossing your route. Its very give and take.

But in the old quarter of Hanoi, it's not just the traffic and pedestrians that effortlessly mingle, so do the sounds. The calls of a rickshaw driver drumming up trade mingled with the sound of a waiter telling you about the amazing food available inside his restaurant. which mixes with the sound of women selling hats and fans to anyone who gives them a half look, mingling with the shop owner declaring his T-shirts to be not only the best but the real thing. Which mingles with the choral rendition of the many street food sellers promoting their stall above all others. mingled with the lazy stall holder who sits out front on a stool staring at a mobile phone and barks at you as you pass, “buy something”. All of this is the backdrop to the men who let out gut-wrenching sounds as they gob on the pavement in front of you.

But in the old quarter of Hanoi, it's not just the traffic, pedestrians and the sounds that effortlessly mingle, so do the smells. The sweet heady smell of the joss sticks mingled with chopped garlic frying in a hot pan, which mingles with seated plants in pots and the smell of fresh flowers loaded onto a push bike as its peddled past. All of which mingles with the heady mix of French Gauloise and Camel untipped cigarettes mingled with the smell from large bamboo pipes bellowing smoke into the thick air. Turn a corner and a funeral gathering splashed potent rose water everywhere, which mingles with the smell of dozens of coffee houses as they roast their beans. The smell of an overworked drainage system fights with the smell of rubbish bins simmering in the hot, humid atmosphere.

But in the old quarter of Hanoi, it's not just the traffic, the pedestrians, the sounds and the smells that effortlessly mingle, so do the sights.Even the narrowest of streets are lined with trees that throw a dappled sunlight effect across the road, which mingles with the thousands of telephone and power cables stretched like a worn out string vest above the roads. The delicate red flowers of the Coral Tree mingling with the bright purple of the Bougainvillea. The bright almost hippy type clothes of the backpackers mingle with the sombre black and white attire of the old ladies of Hanoi, which mingles with short shorts and bare midriffs of modern Hanoi. Ancient pushbikes mingle with Porsche 4x4’s, which mingle with high-end fashion shops who are mingling with centuries-old chop shops.

In the old quarter of Hanoi, it pays to mingle.