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Good Morning Everyone,
We are just about to finish our time in Hanoi, Vietnam and waiting for a bus to go south to Hue (a 14 hour overnight bus), so I thought this would be an ideal time to give you an update on our travels.
So the 24 hour bus to Hanoi from Vientiene, went better than expected even though I had some Vietnam mans feet in my face whilst I was sleeping, the bus was not too spacious and the choir of snoring was very interesting at times, but after getting over the initial shock of the bus we were travelling on, time went pretty quick and I managed to get quite a bit of sleep.
Upon arrival in Hanoi we got a taxi to Hanoi Backpackers, this was recomened to us from Jackie a girl from Inverness we met in Vientienne. The taxi drive didn't really turn out as planned though, with us having to pay far much than we should have done. In Bangkok the trick is to get taxi's on the meter so they are cheaper so when the driver of the taxi offered us a trip on meter we jumped at the chance thinking we was on a winner but not realising that the taxi meter's over here have been fiddled with so they go up far quicker. By the end of our 10 minute trip we had racked up a 600,000 dong taxi bill, this is around twenty english pounds. But we took this on the chin and at least we know for future reference.
We couldn't get into the Hanoi Backpackers the first night, this is partly because we arrived late and also because we went to the old Hanoi backpackers which doesn't have the same amount of room the new one does. So we checked in at the Tonkin hostel where we both managed to get a double bed each, a luxury which I haven't had since I've been away. That night we decided to hit the town, we were quite shocked that Hanoi was that busy, in our heads we had Vietnam as a pretty quiet town but the roads are properly mental and there are motorbikes everywhere! Not like Laos where it was pretty peaceful and calm. We bumped into someone who was on our bus, Maynard from Houston, Texas and went for a few beers with him and he also showed us where the new Hanoi Backpackers was so we could check in there the next day. We only had a few beers and called it an early one as Earl was feeling a little ill.
The next day we got up early and came to check in at the New Hanoi Backpackers, after this we did a little tour of the centre of Hanoi going to see the Presendential Palace, which wasn't too bad but there wasn't too much too see apart from a house on stilts and some old cars. We then made our way to the Ho Chi Minh museum which was interesting and we found out about the man who revolutionised Vietnam history. And he also looks a lot like Mr Meaghi. We then went and had a look at at the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum which was closed as it only opens for two hours really early every morning, but i can tell you that it looks very nice from the outside. We ended our tour with going to see the One Pillar Pogoda. After this we went to the water puppet show, I expected something like a wet version of sooty or punch and judy on water but this wasn't the case. It wasn't particularly great, everything was in Vietnamese so we couldn't really understand anything and although the puppets were good and it was interesting, it would have been much better if there was a story behind the show and I could have understood what was happening. After that we went back to the hostel as we wanted to enter the pub quiz, when we got to our dorms to get changed we met three english guys, Tom, Rory and Pete and asked if we wanted to join there quiz team Quiz Akabusi, so we did and we ended up winning the quiz getting 30 out of 40, we got a few free beers and shots for winning and then went out for the night in Hanoi, which was a really good laugh.
The next day we decided to go with the guys we met the night before to Ha Long Bay, this had gone from 3 to about 11 people a Korean girl called Alice, an American couple Troy and Sunny, thre German girls, so we went to book this and then get some food. Me and Earl then went to go and see the Hanoi Prison which was ironically named the Hanoi Hilton. It was here where we realised what it is like to be a celebrity as there was around 100 Vietnam children who all wanted to say hello and talk to the westerners! I found the prison really interesting, and probably my favourite tourist attraction I have seen in Hanoi. On our way back we bumped into the English guys again and had a few beers with them and then went for some food, which was proceeded by a few more beers.
The next day we got up early as we were getting picked up at 7.45 to got to Ha Long Bay, after a three hour bus trip to our boat we got on our boat had dinner and then went to see the Sung Sot Cave, this was probably the biggest cave I have ever been in in, it was huge and really nice, we then did some kayaking which I really enjoyed. Once we got back to the boat we did some diving from the top of the boat, I say diving but I was more bombing than anything else. We then had a few drinks, played the goggles on drinking game which was really fun, and then things really got interesting when the karaoke came out. Me and Rory kicked things off with an excellent rendition of Man in the Mirror, Earl belted out notorious and some Metallica with Tom, I absoloutley murdered Elton John and Kiki Dee's Don't Go Breaking my Heart with the American girl Sunny. I think people actually left the room to get away from my singing however I recovered well in the group version of when the Lion sleeps tonight, and performed some Westlife with Izzy a girl from Bournemouth we met on the boat and some of the bar staff and also ended with my strongest song, Elton John can you feel the love tonight. The night was also funny as the framed Gary Neville my former work colleagues got me came out, and everyone loved this getting photos with him everywhere, doing karoke, in a fridge, with the bar staff, on the top shelf, it was great fun. Eddie a Chelsea fan on the boat even took to him after his original hatred to him and even ended up kissing him.
The next day we were woken up early for breakfast, Earl went to see the monkey caves where there were actually n o Monkeys, I went back to bed a little hungover as did most others, but once we were up we went sailing around the rocks of Ha Long Bay and then went back to land. That night it was Rory's last night before he went on too China so we had a pretty big night, going for food (me and Earl both tried deer for the first time which was really tasty) and having a few beers and buckets of whiskey. Once again Gary Neville came out and my camera is pretty much full of him with random people and in random places. One scouser didn't take this very well but we were in high spirits especially after seeing Sunderland get a draw with Man City, so were belting out some Man Utd songs and my favourite part was teaching some american girls some Man Utd chants.
Anyway that pretty much brings us up to date, we got up late this morning after the big night last night and now are just waiting to catch our bus to Hue.
Hope everyone is well back home
Speak soon and stay safe
Adi
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