We had an early flight out to Hanoi so we were up and out at about 4am so you can imagine my joy when we got to the check in desk and realised we didn't have a visa for Vietnam. We've been to 8 different countries by this point and I'd always got everything right so I don't know how I missed this one, I could have sworn I'd checked all the countries in Asia at the start of our trip and they were all visa on arrival. To be fair Vietnam is visa on arrival but you have to have an approval letter prior to flying! 4 emergency visas, a VERY long wait in the airport and a dash across Bangkok to the other airport later and we were on our way!

Hanoi is a brilliant city but the traffic is mental, there seems to be no traffic system whatsoever, its a free for all but with no road rage at all. There are 7 million people in Hanoi and 4 million mopeds! The only way to describe it is that everyone has a force field around them and they weave in and out of the congested streets almost but not quite having an accident every couple of metres. Crossing the road is an art form, you literally just walk out into the traffic, keep walking and it weaves around you. I stupidly told everyone that if you wave your hand in the air like a fishtail it means pedestrian in panic and the traffic will stop for you. Casson spent most of his time fishtailing for fun!

Hanoi is where we found bia hoi, which is a keg on the side of the street and you get a glass of beer for 15p, no glass tastes the same and it's alternative name is "truth serum", the stories that came out when drinking it stay in Hanoi!

We booked a 2 night cruise on Halong bay and it was absolutely brilliant. We had lunch as soon as we got there and the food was amazing and there was so much of it, my kind of cruise! That afternoon we went to a huge cave, went kayaking and ended it on a beach.

That evening we made fresh spring rolls, had another amazing meal and then had a few drinks. We knew the drinks were going to be expensive on board so we'd brought a bottle of rum with us but we thought we'd better buy some beers as well. It was a really good crowd so we had such a laugh, there were 2 American lads who had been drinking cocktails and banging on about how much they like to party and then all of a sudden they were nowhere to be seen, they'd gone to bed ..... at 9.15 pm!

There were 2 American girls who were so drunk, one of them told Kellie and I all about her trip, went to the bar, came back less than 5 minutes later and started to tell us exactly the same story (we quickly put a stop to it, it was boring enough the 1st time, the 2nd time would have been torture!)

The 2nd American girl worked for cirque du soleil and my God didn't we know it, she must have said it about 30 times or more. I guess it didn't help that people (Barry) kept taking the mick out of her by asking her where she worked and she kept answering as she didn't have a clue

American stupid questions of the evening:

Q1) how long is this happy hour for?
A1) oh I don't know, I'm thinking there's a clue in the title?

Q2) what actually is fish sauce?
A2) massive pause from our guide ..... sauce made from fish

We ended up staying out on deck till gone 3am in the morning, the poor guy who was trying to sleep downstairs kept being woken up for more beer, that included us as somehow we managed to polish off a whole bottle of rum, Jaeger and God knows how many cans of beer!

The next day at breakfast was a quiet affair given that it was 7.30am! Oh apart from the gobby girl from Yorkshire who was shouting "pussies" at the Americans who'd gone to bed early.

That morning we went on another boat to Lan ha bay were we kayaked through caves and swam in the sea, apart from one unbelievably hairy arm pitted girl from Sweeden (Barry couldn't stop looking at them) we had the boat to ourselves.

We were all in the water when Casson and Barry decided to jump off the top of the boat. Casson got up there, stepped over the rail and then completely bottled it. We don't know whether it was the copious amounts of alcohol the night before as he loves the water but he just couldn't do it. We are so competitive with each other that I saw my opportunity and took it. I got out of the water went to the top deck, stepped over the rail and jumped off. I surfaced to Casson saying I'd mugged him off and now he had to jump, Barry went first closely followed by Casson. We've not let him live that one down.

The 2nd night on the boat was completely different, all the guests had changed and we now had a Vietnamese family of 16 and 2 young girls from Cardiff. I felt so sorry for those girls as we were all in bed by 8.30 and their only option was to go to bed themselves or listen to karaoke all night. They definitely chose the wrong day to come!

On our last night in Hanoi we went back to a restaurant that we'd eaten in previously and the food and service had been amazing, unfortunately this wasn't the case this night. We don't know what had gone on but all of the staff were so angry and kept shouting. A woman brought spring rolls to our table but we hadn't ordered any but when I told her that I honestly thought she was going to combust, she just started screaming in Vietnamese. They got some of our order wrong and if took about half an hour to pay the bill. This is when we made our rule of neverr going back to the same placed twice!

General Points:

1) Barry went to what he thought was a restaurant toilet but when he came out he walked past a guy watching TV eating his tea, he'd only gone and into someone's house and used their toilet!

2) Even though we took our own rum on board we still managed to go through 32 cans of beer, God knows how many cokes and a few bottles of water!

3) Casson wants to move here for the 15p bia hoi