Date: 25th June 2011 Place: Hanoi Weather: Raining Well our 14 hour bus journey turned into a 17 hour one. Because of the rain I think the roads had flooded or something which meant the bus had to stop for a while. When we finally got to Hanoi we weren't dropped off in the centre either because their time period had gone so we had to get a taxi into the centre. We got to our hostel (Hanoi Backpackers) fairly easily and since we had already booked a room it was all straight forward for once. It wasn't quite ready for us when we got there but we had some free breakfast and chilled out in the upstairs lounge with the Hangover 2 on again! After we had got our stuff sorted in our room, we went to see if we could both get our cameras fixed. Lucy's had sand in it from the beach parties on Koh Phangan and I dropped mine so the screen was completely blank. We managed to find a guy who would do mine for about £20 and Lucy's for about £15 so not too bad. I then had a shower before the mad rush because it is a communal bathroom in this hostel. We decided to have food early and then go to the hostel bar for drinks because it was happy hour, and we also bought some wine for £1.50 a bottle, so we drank that too. We met a few people there, and a group of girls from Ireland who were loving all the advice I was dishing out (I think its safe to say I have seen and donethe good, the bad, and the ugly after one month in Vietnam) Once we had drank our bottles of wine, I then used me cheekyness and managed to get us free beers from the bar J I think that's what tipped me over the edge, because I cannot remember the rest of the night, only that I ended up in a bar called The Hair of The Dog, and once again got carried home :-/ Date: 26th June 2011 Place: Hanoi Weather: raining I woke up feeling sorry for myself and pretty hungover! I managed to drag myself down to breakfast and then went to chill in the chillout room for the majority of the day and watched episode after episode of The Inbetweeners. Every day at the hostel theres a special, today was a BBQ and FREE Beers in the lounge so when they started making the burgers we couldn't resist having one even though we were going to be having a feast at Snake Village that night. Snake village I thought the Cambodian's ate just about anything but it turns out the Vietnamese eat just about anything also. After arriving at Hanoi Backpackers hostel, we soon recognised one of the tour's, Snake Village. A lot of backpackers we had met along the way had "Warned" us about the tour, and how gruesome it is. With this in mind, Lucy and I were syked up and had no problems with putting ourselves forward and persuading many others to also sign up for the snake village tour where we were promised a fun packed evening involving the chance to kill snakes and then eat them. Looking back I'm not entirely sure what possessed us to sign up, maybe we were still drunk from the night before, nevertheless it was certainly an experience we won't forget!
As we entered Snake Village we all gathered around a cage full of snakes. Out of nowhere our tour guide Matt and a Vietnamese guy opened the cage and started dishing them out between the 18 of us idiots who had signed up for this "Tour" After taming the snakes then them being put into a sack (yep ready for dinner) we then sat around giant bottles of local Vietnamese rice wine containing all types of giant Cobras.

Part of the appeal of the tour is to slaughter a live snake and eat its beating heart. We stood around and watched the first guy who made it look so easy. 2 Vietnamese guys stretched out the snake whilst he slit the live snake and then out popped the beating heart. He used his teeth to pull the heart away from the snake and swallowed it whole while it was still pulsating. Once the heart had been removed the blood was squeezed into a nearby glass and mixed with the local rice wine, which you then have to down in one. In another glass the bile from it's gallbladder was squeezed. Many dead snakes later we all sat at our table's and were told to down the concoction of snake blood and rice wine that was placed in front of us. I can only describe the taste as metalicy, just like blood when you lick your finger after a paper cut or something (or maybe it was just all in my head)
The setting at Snake village is actually really nice, its over a stream and In a bamboo shack, and we all sat around on mats on the floor, quite romantic for a snake feast.We were told by Matt that as part of tradition we had to down a shot each time a different snake dish was brought out to us. A whole load of dishes later we were beginning to wonder just how many ways can you actually eat snake. We ate crushed snake bones with popadoms to start, rice sprinked with snake, snake spring rolls, snake steak, steak meatballs and so many other dishes. My favourate dish was the snake spring rolls, meatballs and the ribs were ok too, even though they didn't have too much meat on them. We finished the meal with endless shots of the snakes bile mixed with more rice wine, im not sure what was worse, by the time we got the shots of bile I was well gone!

Date: 27th June 2011 Place: Hanoi (Halong Bay) Weather: BEAUTIFUL!
Halong Bay, all aboard the jolly roger! After thinking we may not get to go on the Halong Bay trip in Hanoi due to bad storms they had been having, we ended up being extremely lucky and had the best weather Hanoi had seen in a while, pure blue skies and bright shining sun. We set off around 8am, which is a killer when you have been to snake village the previous night and got in at 5am and then had to pack before leaving. Still in the same clothes from the night before and most definatley still drunk, I was not prepared for the 4 hour bus journey awaiting me. I had finally sobered up and once on board the Jolly Roger we were shown to our cabins which were actually really cute and quaint considering it was a boozy tour. After an enormous lunch everyone got settled on deck and we cruised through the rock formations ofHalong bay.
Later on we anchored in the bay and decided to jump off the top deck. It didn't look that high until you were right on the edge looking down and god did it feel like a lifetime before you actually hit the water! After this we were put into pairs of boy/girl kayaks and paddled, well I just sat back and relaxed actually, as mine and Adams kayak had a hole in it and was taking in to much water so the guide and adam sat in a kayak whilst I sat in the one behind and they pulled me along, perfect for catching some zzz and some rays! We got around to a cave which you had to crawl into called the Fairy Cave. We'd all come totally unprepared and had about 2 torches between the 68 of us so we stumbled about in the dark trying to take in as much of the caves beauty as possible. The cave was full of stalactites and all the walls glittered and twinkled in the torchlight. Andy the tour guide said, they named it fairy cave after a love story between a dragon and a fairy, he also said that the stalactites tasted like candy floss, yep we all almost belived him.
Adam and I managed to steal one of the non sinking kayaks and were one of the first back to the Jolly Roger despite zigzagging all the way.

We all sat down together for dinner and it was yet another delicious meal. The party started straight after, and the music went on, the beer came out and the drinking games started. I didn't last long before I had to hit the sack, and boy was I glad having been rudely awoken at 7am for breakfast. After breakfast we climbed onto a smaller boat which took us to Castaway Island. It was really secluded but nowhere near as picturesque as some of the beaches I have been to in Vietnam, it was actually quite dirty and you couldn't see through the water at all,but It didn't stop me having a dip. We spent most of the day relaxing on the beach and each had a choice of: rock climbing; tubing or wakeboarding.

Lucy and I chose Tubing (no, not the Vang Vieng Tubing) There's a blown up square block thing, which is attached by string to a speed boat which then pulls you along at high speed. It's a job in itself to get on it, even before you get dragged around and flung off into the air hitting the water hard, you seriously have to hold on for dear life, and we swallowed half the bay every time we were thrown off, lost your dignity by losing your bikini bottoms (yes this did happen) and suffered major whip lash, but it was so much fun.

The party on the island followed the pattern of the previous night but everyone partied a lot harder, including me. After a number of drinking games including "Paranoia" "Giant Jenga" and lots of "Buffaloing" (being caught drinking with your right hand) we all decided to go for a late night dip and swim with the plankton the stuff that glitters in the water. After being dragged from the sea by Chris the wakeboard instructor because there was a storm coming I can safely say I slept well in my little bamboo shack despite again being woken at the crack of dawn by the breakfast dong!