Wow - eerrr... Once again once again - I seem to have had way to many experience in the last week to try and include them all in this blog. And I appologise for you having read a novel everytime I update this blog.

I suppose in need to start in Bangkok, because the few days that I was there before my flight left to Hanoi - were incredible - I can safely say that I've experinced Bangkok in a way that.. possibly - very few other people have - or ever will.

At first - after leaving my group behind, I felt a tad lonely - suddenly, I was completely by myself and everything was left up to me. Which after a few huors of getting used to - was actually really nice. I found the perfect Backpacker hostel to stay in.. 3 pounds per night , with shared bathrooms, a fan that looked like it was going to fall on my at any moment and a room so small that it was hard to move around the 1 metre-wide bed. Actually it was the perfect compliment to reading 'The Beach' (which is a right of passage for anyone travelling to this part of the world.) which was surreal because the first chapter pretty much described the first couple of weeks I had in Thailand as if it was my own experience. I actually really related to the main character Ri- this is straying from the point - a bad thing to do right now :P

After two days by myself - not really being able to do much because the Red Shirt protesters had all but put central Bangkok into shutdown - I met a random traveller while reading the beach in a free internet cafe. This ended being awesome luck for me because he had a double room in a really nice hotel that had already been payed for with no one sleeping in the second bed... SORTED! - Rooftop pool an' all!

The day before my flgiht: Both of us had to pick up our visas for the next country we were going to. I'd been told to pick it up at 6pm. I spent most of the (incredibly hot) day by the pool waiting for 6pm to arrive, but got too hot and returned to my air conditioned room to catch up on BBC world news - I had to do this everyday because at this point the events in Bangkok were changing on an hourly basis - I could actually see the smoke of the burning building from the roof of our hotel.... Then the curfew came in! Bangkok when mad! But nor the normal type of mad! I got a call from the travel agent ordering me to come to the office to pick up my passport/visa at 4pm becasue all the shops in bangkok were closing early. The message from the government was that everyone had to be in their homes and off the streets between 8pm that night untill 6am the next morning. I could help but think.. 'HA! - no way - Khao San road is THE road that never sleeps - it will never close' but by 8pm - it was empty - by 9/10pm I could have counted the people walking down it on two hands. It was an amazing experience. Me and a few other people we met found some deck chairs ande placed them in the middle of a MAIN road and sat there drinking beer - truly surreal! The problem then was - how the HELL was i supposed to get to the airport - my flight was leaving at 6:45am and my airport transfer bus had been cancelled. Eventually we managed to find a taxi - the driver of which was the most terrified Thai person I've ever seen. Getting him to drive me to the airport was SO HARD! He kept turning round to go back everytime he saw yellow lights with the fear that he would get shot by a sniper - and freaked if I took my camera out to take a photo of the empty road for the same reason. On the 1 hour journey to the airport - along a 4 lane highway I counted exactly 20 cars along the way!!! Then my flight was delayed untill 9:45 - >:( after paying 1300Baht for the taxu that pissed me off :P

But - after a boring 4 hour wait at the airport - I got my flight to Hanoi - the only smooth part of the trip. I arrived at the airport, took the minivan into the centre of the city - and met Kate (cousin). It was great to see a familiar face - especially one I hadn't seen for way too long! :D I was immediately thrown into Hanoi life as I jumped onto the back of Kate's scooter with wy huge rucksack and day pack - and jetted round the streets - dodging the thousands of motorbikes. It was the best introduction to Hanoi I could have got. I didn't really ave time to feel scared - even tho if the same thing was happening back in England I would have been I would have been pale with fear. All you can do here is put all your faith in the random vietnamese scooter drivers that are coming hurtling towards to see you and avoid you - traffic lights almost mean nothing - but the most amazing thing is... Road rage simply does not exist. It doesnt matter if you just cut someone up - or you knoc someone completely from their bike - apart from "wow" and maybe "ow!" no one gets cross - its a way of life! Crossing the road is the same. I think you cold probably close your eyes and walk across the road (slowly enough) and not get hit at all - as long as you dont speed up or stop no matter how big the army of motorbikes heading for you is. IOts so hard to put this into words. Put simply - ins incredible here. I love it. Its SO South East Asian, but it somehow feels very much like a European city at the same time. You can really see the French influence here, but it merges with the madness that is Vietnam in general. :D it's brilliant. This is the first place ive been to so far that I can actually see myself living for a year or so.

So - as you may know - my original plan was to cycle all the way from Hanoi, to Saigon in the south and to Siem Reap in Cambodia. This idea, because of how horribly hot and sweaty it is here, has fallen through. However - Im going to do it... TOP GEAR STYLE! At the moment, im looking around for a motorbike. I was introduce to a local guy - an incredible guy actually, who is his own mechanic and sells Minsk bikes. I was invited to his house tyo have a look at themand ended up spending the day with him, visitng his village just outside Hanoi, having lunch cooked for me - he had the best of simple lives - a beautiful bngalow in the country with his own vegetable garden - locally fresh made tofu and pinapple. The bike he had was LUUUUSH! Its the bike I wanted to buy - and I wanted to buy it from him - because he was such a down to earth honest friend by the end of the day. But the price is more than I can afford and its a full manual MOTORBIKE and I dont want to have to be thinking about a clutch as well as the hundreds of other motorbikes that will be hurtling towards me on my journey. So the hunt continues.

I've just come back from one of the highlights of my whole trip so far though. Ha Long Bay. I went on the ROCK LONG, ROCK HARD cruise of the Bay. Along with 24 others my age - we had two nights and 3 days of AWESOME drinking games, watersports and incredible scenery! Its named the Bay of the Descending Dragon - with Karst rock formations jutting out of the water. It's a mountain range - but all we see are the peaks - its irritating something that a camera can't put into perspective. We had our chance to take it all in when we arrived on our private island to engage in some watersports and yet mooorrre drinking. BENO CAN OFFICIALLY WAKEBOARD! haha! It's one of the funnest things I've ever done!! photos will be on facebook soon I think - as someone else has them on their camera. I played the best game of Circle of Death/Ring of Fire EVER and a new game called Paranoia which revealed some 'interesting' facts about the group :D

I always get to the end of these blogs thinking/nowing ive missed out vital info - but its impossible!! and then I dont write about the stuff in the detail I want to :P but otherwise this would be three times longer than it is now... which wouldnt be fun!

Anyway - lads... at somepoint - we are all DEFINITELY coming here together and doing one CRAZY awesome trip across the country. Vietnam is somewhere ive been for 4/5 days and I've already fallen in love :D haha!!

xXx