After a lovely breakfast at the hotel we headed back to Hanoi by bus, on route there was a massive thunderstorm and loads of the side roads were flooded, which made for an interesting drive.

We arrived in Hanoi at lunchtime, checked into our hotel in the Old Quarter and headed out for lunch. We got food from a small kitchen on the street, where we sat on small plastic chairs with a plastic table and ate a local dish - Bun Cha, which is pork in a watery sauce and cold noodles which you dip into the sauce, all for under a £1!! After lunch a few of us wondered round the Old Quarter where each street served a particular trade and was named after that trade, for example we found a street which just sold toys, another sold bamboo, one sold shoes and another sold diy supplies.

In the evening we had tickets to watch the famous water puppet show at the Thang Long Water Puppet Theatre. Lets just say the show was interesting - it lasted about 45 minutes, all the speaking was in Vietnamese so was not really sure what was happening and the puppeteers were all talking and laughing behind the scenes while the show was going on. It was not West End standard, but it made us all laugh and was something different to do. After dinner we all headed out for a few drinks and found a place on the street serving beer for 18p a glass - such a bargin!! You did have to sit on tiny plastic chairs and there were no proper toilets, although they were offering an alley for you to use for a charge (we used a cafe toilet instead), but for the price of the beer you could not say no. We stayed for a couple but when we were in need of a proper toilet we headed to a couple of bars for some cocktails and ended up in a bar called half man half noodle where you could write all over the walls, before heading back to the hotel just before 2am!!

After a few drinks and a late night the early start this morning was a struggle but we wanted to visit Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum Complex to see Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse and it is only open in the mornings. Our taxi dropped us off at the front of the building and there did not appear to be a queue, which was brilliant as we were told to expect long queues! However, as we started to walk along the paths towards the building we were told by guards that we could not walk that way and ended up having to walk so far in the heat to an entrance on the other side. Once through security, which consisted of being asked if you were carrying a knife and taking your water off you (which in this heat and after a few drinks last night was horrible not having a drink), we queued and were ushered along by guards dressed all in white. When we finally entered the room with the body you have to walk at a constant pace around the room and if you slow down the guards are there telling you to speed up!! This was the first time I had ever seen a dead body and it was quite surreal! After leaving the cool building we were back out in the heat as we wondered over to the one pillar pagoda, in search of much needed water!!

A few of us then navigated our way through the city to the Temple of Literature and then on to the Hoa Lo Prison Museum or the Hanoi Hilton as it is also know as. This museum was really interesting and it was quite moving looking at the photos they had displayed and the ages of some of the prisoners