So we finally arrived in Hanoi after the worst 31 hour bus ride of my life, I so wished that we flew. We arrived in the city at about 8.30pm and after much thought me and Jess decided that we did not want to stay in a dorm room as we were knackered and we had spent far to long already with the general public. We had dinner with a group of people from the bus, Genna, Sarah, John and Andrew, in the 1st restaurant we found, which was a western place, but we needed comfort food.

So our 1st full day in Hanoi (7th Nov) we decided that we needed to fill our day with culture after a 3 day bender in Vang Vieng. We booked our trip to Halon Bay for the next day and met up with one of the girls from the coach, also named Sarah for our day of culture. We grabbed some breakfast and then headed to the prison museum. This has got to be one of my favorite things to visit so far. It's separated into two sections, 1st you go through the exhibits about the French imprisoning the Vietnamese. They had restored parts of the prison to look like how it once was, and they put mannequins in the cells and in certain areas to show you how they were kept, which kept freaking us out and making us jump when you turned a corner, this wasn't helped by the music they were playing. The second part was about how they used the prison for the POW's during the Vietnamese war, this was the prison that John McCain was imprisoned at. All the exhibits showed how well they trusted the Americans and were less intense as the first part but were also interesting to look around.

Next we walked around the large lake in the centre of Hanoi, we tried to go to the water puppet show but it was sold out for days. So we settled to look around the area and take in Hanoi as it was a beautiful day. We then headed towards the history museum, which we thought would be about Vietnamese history, but when we got in we found out it was the natural history museum, which was a little disappointing, but interesting all the same.

After a lot of walking we deserved a good cool down, so we went for ice cream at Fanny's....hehe. This place was amazing they did ice creams in hundreds of flavors. We got the ice cream fondue, which were 14 different scoops with choc sauce for dipping. After this we went for a wander around the markets north of the lake.

That evening we met up with Rich and Cat and some of their friends to go out for some drinks, but 1st me and Jess went to the tastiest restaurant ever. It was called Little Hanoi, where we got roll your own cat fish spring rolls and sesame prawns. We then went for some drinks in temple bar, Hanoi backpackers (new) and finished the night off at Mau bar.

So an early morning after a boozy night out, never well, but we were too excited as it was Halon bay day. We met the other travelers at Hanoi Backpackers and headed to the coach with rainbow sombrero that were given to us. A four hour coach ride to the bay allowed us to get chatting with the other travelers on the coach, the ozzy girls, Emily and Sally & Austin.

We finally got on the boat, named the Jolly Roger, but because we had some many of us they tied another boat to us, where we chilled out with the other 53 travelers with a nice cold beer on top deck in the sun. Then we had a lovely lunch of seafood and Thai food was soooo good. Our room on the boat was surprisingly good, comfy twin room with En-suite, not what we were expecting at all. So after a quick change, it was boat jumping time....at this point i'm starting to poo myself as you all know I don't like heights, boats and open water. But I plucked up the courage and threw myself into the sea, it was a lot higher than I thought but it was so exhilarating that I did it again without Jess persuading me...guess I am conquering these fears after all. After this we kayaked to a beach so we could watch the sunset, this was tiring, the beach was miles away and I have the upper body strength of a kitten so Jess was trying to motivate me to get us there. She is far too sporty for my liking. We finally made it there with our beer in tow. Instead of watching the sunset from the beach, they told us from the top of the hill would make it more amazing. The hill was so steep, and by this time I was knackered, but I made it up there very sweaty. After watching the sunset we kayaked back to boat, we raced a couple of German guys and we won...though my arms weren't winners.

After dinner, was drinking time. I and Jess got our round of 12 rum and cokes in ready for a game of ring of fire. This was the best game of ring of fire ever; we were competing against the other group. (This is where you should stop reading now mum) There were sex confessions, clothes swapping, kissing, armpit & butt licking, clothes removing, general nakedness and rule makings for our team and the other team. Many rum and cokes were consumed and a lot of fun was had, I know it seems like a lot of boozing has happened over the last week or so and you would be right, but this is what travelers do on this types of trips. After the games, my ipod was put on to the party play list and we partied through the night well until 3am when me and Jess decided we needed to die in our rooms and that we weren't being logical anymore as we were thinking about sacking off our flights to stay longer, which we didn't in the morning. I had so much fun with the ozzy girls, Emily and the others.

I did not feel great the next morning as we had to be up at 7.30am, and breakfast of eggs made the whole situation a lot worse. We then moved onto the other boat and waved goodbye to all the 3dayers. Sucked that we couldn't go with them. Instead we got to do some more sea diving, which helped the hangover a lot. Then back onto the Jolly Roger for lunch and home time. After we napped on the bus we checked into the Hanoi backpackers and then went out to dinner again, we found another little place that did the catfish spring rolls and I had squid, I am starting to love squid a lot. We then had a wander around the markets again to look for souvenirs. We ended up in another Ice cream parlor on the balcony over looking over the main roundabout north of the lake. Hanoi's traffic is crazy, mopeds everywhere and no real system. To cross the roads you just go and the traffic dodge you, its petrifying when you see traffic coming straight for you. I have never seen so many mopeds in one place, but I really loved Hanoi and would definitely go back it was a very cool and quirky city and you find more and more just wondering around.

Now back in Bangkok, aka home, for a couple more nights. We are ditching our suitcases for backpacks. We are going to do it the proper way now. We stayed in a guesthouse yesterday which was named Ben's House; it was nice until the night time when all you could here till 3am was loud pumping techno music and then banging in the morning, so we have changed places now. We are off to a Lady boy Cabaret tonight which should be interesting. Off to Chiang Mai tomorrow.