Phong Nha/ Hanoi

We went to phong Nha from Hue for a day trip to see some caves. It took four hours to get there but we knew we had to get a bus to Hanoi that evening so it broke up the journey. Phong Nha was cold and we knew we had hit the north of Vietnam. The caves we very cool and it was well worth doing. We then got dropped off at the travel company and went into the main hostel for some food and a game of cards. The bus came at 9:30 to get us and it was off to Hanoi.

We got to Hanoi at 6am and it was bloody cold! We arrived at the hostel that was recommended and they had rooms. Only downside was it was on the 6th floor. We couldn't check in until 2pm so we went and walked around. It didn't take long for us to get lost. Then Anne Marie took over the lead and Jake, Ross and John followed! She got us to where we wanted to go and the shops were just about opening. Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam but is nowhere near as big as Ho Chi Minh or half as busy. Anne Marie spotted a dominoes which she has been desperate for since we left so that was tea sorted. By 8am Anne Marie had bought herself a north face coat. With quality bartering skills we got a bargain. Jake also wanted one but they only had it in the same colour. We didn't want to wear the same coat because we took the mick out of the Russians in Nha Trang for doing the same. Jake said the he wasn't going to buy a coat and brave the cold and just wanted shoes so we went shopping for them. After an hour of looking around we couldn't find any that fitted him or that looked real. By 10 o clock Jake said he couldn't do it anymore and we had to buy a coat too. Different design and colour to Anne Marie's though. Then we found some shoes and socks and all was good!

We went back to the hostel to look at flights to both Thailand and Bali. When we were there we checked the weather in Bali. Lucky we did, it's storms everyday! The plus side of this is that the Philippines are back on and we plan to fly there on the 1st March.

The evening we took advantage of the free beer for an hour at the hostel. We played a game called stack cup which we will teach everyone when we're home. Then ran and got dominoes to be back in time for the pub quiz. We absolutely smashed the quiz winning it by a mile. We didn't have help and we didn't go on our phones. Jake was just thankful a question on Kiera Knightly didn't come up - Who's he? After a couple of beers we booked to go on the castaway tour which I will write a separate blog about. We were set to leave at 6:30am so at 11 we called it a night and went to bed.