Day 10

GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!! (ok so I have so been waiting to say that haa haa!)

Early Air Asia flight from Bangkok to Hanoi (3 flights in jusnt over a week for me now thats good!) we arrived in Hanoi around 8.30am

A bit cooler than Bangkok and not humid we found it quite a pleasant change! Our driver picked us up and navigated his way to our hostel (Little Hanoi Hostel, what a gem and suuuch friendly staff!) inbetween MANIC traffic! On the way we almost had about 3 accidents with scooters (seriously!) and saw various scooters carrying random things such as live ducks in a basket on the one guys lap and another guy on a scooter with about 50 goldfish all in seperate bags of water hanging off a frame from his scooter! The most classic one had to be a guy carrying a double mattress on his scooter, OMW! its so like those email photos that go around with photos of people carrying pigs, ducks and you name it on the back of their bikes!

After a very warm greeting at our hostel we decided to try to explore a bit around the ciy. Well as some of you know I am not the best at crossing busy roads and I can honestly say this city with its 6 million scooters presents quite a challenge when it comes to crossing roads! I really dont know why they waste the paint on zebra crossings as it means NOTHING to these drivers and the little flashing green man also to them means just drive over unsuspecting tourists! (Karen if you are reading this take how the traffic was in Marrakesh and put it on steroids and still not close! Rush hour was especially fun.....Good thing we have travel insurance!

In the evening we went to a restaurant for our first taste of Vietnamese cuisine. On offer were some normal dishes which we went for but there was also fried cricket springrolls, deep fried locusts YUM! (NOT!) and other random eats, they do love their creepy crawlies here!

Day 11

As a city Hanoi doesnt have that much to offer in way of tourist attractions so we decided to do a daytrip out to the gorgeous countryside. For a whole £16 we got a full day trip with lunch and english tour guide and a full tour which was great! The pound definately goes alot further than in Europe!

We started off by visiting the Emperors old temple where standing outside was a waterbuffalo with a man randomly perched ontop of this wild animal! beautiful surroundings and just like you see in photos of Vietnam! Sven was constantly harrased by the local ladies (wearing the traditional straw hats and all - love it!) trying to sell him everything under the sun. So he ended up with a water, coke and some postcards just to get rid of the sellers haa haa.

Oh and I forgot to mention that in Vietnam we are like billionaires! haa haa £1 = 30 000 Vietnamese dong, so we drew a few million the other day, so weird trying to get our heads around it all!

After admiring the temples we hopped on some very dodgy bikes (the gears on mine were broken so to stop me moaning Sven swapped with me half way through!) cycling for an hour through the countryside past rice paddies and all the local kids who were all smiling and waving at us was so cool :)

After our bike ride we enjoyed a buffet lunch at a local restaurant and then went on an hour and a halfs boat ride through some of the most stunning scenery with limestone cliffs I have ever seen. We had 2 ladies rowing us the whole way (ok Sven also helped) while I sat in the front clicking away. We passed local fishermen and loads of other boats - quite touristy but still so worth it!

So badly want to upload all the photos but seriously having problems so you guys will have to be patient :)