Hi everyone!Hope you're all OK. x Daddy, Happy Birthday for tomorrow from me and Stu. Have a brilliant time in Dublin! Love you lots. x

Well, we made it to Hanoi - apparently against all odds if you believe the guidebooks which state, "it's probably not a good idea to fly with Laos Airlines unless you have no alternative"!Having this in mind there was already a bit of apprehension on our parts when we boarded the plane, and our minds weren't exactly put at rest by the flight attendant who took us through the safety demonstration in about 3 seconds, informing us that if the need for a life vest arises there are none on board so just grab the seat you're sat on!

It all went pretty smoothly though; we landed safely, got our bags back quickly, found the bus pick-up point no problem and got dropped off not too far from our hostel.Unfortunately, the next 12 hours didn't continue along the same hassle-free lines.When we got to our hostel (bearing in mind it was about 8 o'clock at night) we were greeted with a cup of rank coffee and the possibility that the hostel had overbooked - no such luck, though (!) - after about an hour of listening to the receptionist harping on about how we should utilise our time in Hanoi by booking over-charged tours to Halong Bay through him we were told that our free breakfast would be served in the hotel lobby/travel agency on a trestle table pushed up against the wall and that the pictures of the hostel on 'hostelworld.com' "were taken a few years ago"…. Really?!We were then showed up to our room which appeared to be the only one inhabited by actual paying guests (the rest we passed seemed to have whole Vietnamese families residing in them) and the room was NOTHING like the room advertised - it was old and manky and one of the beds was already inhabited by (non-paying) ants. We didn't have much choice but to stick it out for the night at least, so we went out for some food, got hassled by just about every street vendor, cyclo driver, book seller, person charging you to be weighed on their bathroom weighing scales on the pavement, taxi driver and restaurant tout in Hanoi, had some food and went back to get some sleep not altogether in-love with Hanoi at first sight!And then came the sleepless night listening to the ant-ridden bed being knawed to death by woodworm, cement being delivered to the building site next door at 3am and actual building work starting at first light.So we got our sh*t together and left the hotel at 8am confident that we would find another hostel no problem (we'd passed loads the night before) and start the Hanoi-experience afresh!Unfortunately not.We walked around Hanoi with our backpacks for over an hour, tried about 20 different hostels/hotels and everywhere was full.We then tried a travel agency which advertised "hotel bookings" only to find ourselves sat for half an hour while 10 different people tried to sell us tours and train tickets and refusing to listen to our pleas of, "please, we just want a hostel!"When we did finally escape without parting with any money (or finding a hostel) we walked around the corner only for me to have a fight with a sloping curb, some water and a metal sign….. and lose.Oh my god, it was embarassing!And it bloody hurt - I just decked it!I stepped off the aforementioned curb to avoid the aforementioned sign, slipped on some water and, with the help of my weighty backpack, fell sideways to come crashing down onto the sign and the pavement and to win some pretty impressive bruises on my left arm.Could things get any worse!?Thankfully not much.We eventually found a hostel which had a room free for only $10 and which had been recommended in the Lonely Planet.It was a s%$thole, but it had a bed, was close to the local watering holes and we were getting the hell out of Hanoi the next day anyway so at least it was only for one night.

Anyway, after a nice, comforting cup of tea and some eggy bread we set off to explore Hanoi - we had a guidebook, a route planned… what could go wrong? Well, let me tell you.Our first point of call was Hoa Lo Prison which the French used to incarcerate many Vietnamese nationalists - it was shut! Our next point of call was Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum - it was shut as Uncle Ho is currently in Russia undergoing maintenance! So, onto Ho Chi Minh's museum and Ho Chi Minh's house - yes, you've guessed it, shut!We found out later that all museums in Hanoi are shut on a Monday for cleaning, so as it was by now 1.30ish (I know - it seemed a lot later to us too!) we made the executive decision to revert to what we know and our usual course of action in times of crisis… we opted for an all-day-session.We headed for the traditional Vietnamese establishment that was the 'Kangaroo Café' and preceded to get very drunk whilst a cyclo driver waited outside for about 2 hours, nodding and smiling at us, convinced that we would want a ride when we came out (even though we hadn't given him any indication of this whatsoever) - he was devasted when we walked out and straight into the bar a couple of doors down!

Luckily, our bad luck was over for the time being - it's amazing what a few beers can do for morale! The next day we actually did manage to visit all of the museums we'd tried to visit the day before - Hao Lo Prison was pretty good; Uncle Ho's museum, not so much! I think one of the highlights of the day was giving into one of the endless number of cyclo drivers and getting a ten-minute ride through the city which we were very relieved to survive - you have honestly never seen so many scooters in your life, and none of them follow any kind of road etiquette - I think traffic lights and zebra crossings are just there to add a bit of colour to the streets!

That evening we paid the ridiculous amount of $35 to stay in a fairly nice hotel and have a hot shower - it was worth it! Especially as we found some little street bars which were just tiny plastic chairs plonked outside shops which had one beer barrel each. What this beer was is anyones guess, but it only cost 2000 dong a glass (about 7p) and was drinkable.A bit dodgy, especially when someone on the lookout shouted "police" and we all had to stand up, move onto the pavement and try to hide all of our chairs… very funny.

And that was pretty much it for Hanoi.Our next activity was to be a 3 day/2 night sailing trip around Halong Bay…..

Catch you later, people. xxx