Soo.. It's Adam here and this is my first blog so bare with it.

Now lets start at the beginning... It was a dark dark morning in the Mumford house, phil, Jamie and myself decided the night before my flight it would be a good idea to go on the lash, this however as my mum and many others told me was in fact one of the worst decisions of my life! Having got to bed at 4 it soon came around to half 5 and time to get up! Having looked at my taxi drivers face (Phil) I decided I would spare him the death journey of driving me to gatwick and instead hastily made my way to leagrave for a train. Once at the airport my idea of blagging my way on to first class somehow failed, something to do with a vague smell of alcohol and vommit... Following my failed attempt I sauntered through to the departure lounge and sprayed my self with copious amounts of aftershave in duty free, to mask any odd smells.

Once on the plane I was put in a row with the other loners, who also had no friends. So after apologising for my overwhelming odour of 10 different aftershaves I decided to befriend the two either side of me, this was made considerably easier after we found out there was a free bar for the entire journey! So in true hare of the dog style vodka coke's were ordered by the dozen, and we were soon swapping stories and enjoying the thought of 14 hours worth of free booze. Very impressive photo of the first leg of the journey's vodka count to follow!

Having consumed my own body weight in airplane food, made possible by not only eating mine, but mopping up what was left from my new plane friends and also befriending the air stewardess to give me seconds (word of advice here Emirates are bloody brilliant), the plane landed in Bangkok. Following the 40 minute queue for visas I ran into the arms of my beloved Danni who had so lovingly slept in the airport overnight to be there with open arms to greet me, it was truly magical (sickening I know but if I don't at least put something sweet about her in here, and instead only mention my two day bender I will in fact be thrown off the train we're currently on, so .... love you hunny!).

Having hugged and smooched each other for a disgusting length of time we decided it would be best to go back to being mean to each other, which began with danni being annoyed as I was in trouble for being tired. Let the fun begin!

Back to being friends again we headed to our hotel which was situated at the thai version of luton airport, so we hoped on a free shuttle bus from their version of standstead and we were off. The hotel we booked much to my delight included a pool and a flat screen telly in the room (hostels... who needs hostels!!). Having dunked in the pool and had a little nap I was revitalised and ready to begin, but unsurprisingly not before being fed. So we moseyed on down to the local market and had some simple but tasty noodles and rice.

Am I blabbering on a bit too much here guys?? Well even if I am tough, keep reading, it'll get better dont worry.

Soooo randomly wandering round we saw some crazy fighter jet skills competition going on, which was on national telly in all the restaurants. Still have no idea what was going on but can't beat a bit of free entertainment! After seeing the sights, which comprised of a market and nothing else, we wandered back to the hotel and had another nap (I like travelling!). After another dip in the pool we headed out for some dinner. Being the avid explorer that I am we decided to go to a place that looked a little authentic! Danni ordered BBQ pork chop and chips, and I went for something that had no English description to it, man vs food here I come! Turns out it was rancid and I stared at danni's BBQ pork chop and begged her for a bite. Having had her throw me her scraps I decided again to tackle my broth. Now it was either the liver, the dodgy fish balls, the indiscriminate meat or the murky brown water it came in that wasn't quite to my taste, but I threw on some chilli and soy sauce and seized the day! I failed! Do again I begged Danni to let me buy some BBQ chicken skewers after we left the restaurant.

With an early morning flight looming we headed back to the hotel and got a well needed early night. Following the flight to Hanoi, Vietnam, the next task was to get past border control, which is no easy feet. For anyone planning to go, the best way is to apply for a visa before hand for a small fee, take the confirmation letter to the airport then pay yet more money when you get there and then get your visa. Now due to a slight miscommunication between Danni and myself it turned out the dollars that she had were in fact not the U.S kind that we needed but instead Australian... This was a little worrying after we clocked the sign that said 'Pay cash only!' And with no US or Vietnamese currency on us we panicked ever so slightly! However, having overhead our conversation our new friend, New Zealand Brian, came to the rescue! Brian being the stand up guy we now know him to be, offered to give US dollars and on the other side of passport control we could simply get him some more out! Big thanks to Brian right now, otherwise we would currently be getting cavity searched in a Vietnamese prison! After we breezed through passport control we duly paid Brian back (45 dollars each for anyone planning on going to go to Vietnam) we then shared a taxi which him and his gf to the hotel we were staying at. Having not booked a hotel (Brian's a bit of a lad and just wings it!) he decided our hotel looked nice enough, and for 7 dollars a night it was certainly cheap enough!

Once we were checked in it was straight to see the sights of Hanoi, after some well deserved lunch of course! Beef noodles 45 Vietnamese dong (VND) or 1.50. Not as cheap as we thought it would be here but street food is so tasty I will happily pay 1.50 every time! The sights of Hanoi included the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, the temple/university of literature, a few museums, some pagodas, a prison and the water puppet show, all of which were well worth seeing! The museums were more beneficial as a nice air conditioned room for an hour, and less so for the historical information but still for 1 dollar you can't complain. We expected to learn a bit more about the Vietnamese war here, but hopefully there will be more on Ho Chi Minh (Saigon).

Following a manic day of sight seeing we were recommended the night market close to our hotel. Selling everything from fake Gucci handbags to 'genuine' Abercrombie t-shirts its a busy place with lots to see and buy and more importantly eat! Just don't eat the little donut things, they're stale and they suck!

After another day of sightseeing and again more eating, we booked onto a halong bay trip. We booked through our hotel who had a few different packages all at reasonable prices ranging from the cheapest (3 night 2 day) at around $90, a little more luxury for $107 ( which we chose), and $130 for the deluxe. Ours included one night staying on the boat and one night staying in a beach bungalow. I know Danni has already written a blog on this trip and I don't want to relive my 'stomach issues' again, but all I will say is look around for your trip and don't think because you're paying less that you've got a good deal, there is no such thing! You will just end up having a little less quality at some point along the way. But you're backpacking so a villa with a veranda should be out of your price range anyway!!!

I'm skipping back and forward in time here guys, so apologies for the lack of chronological order but I keep napping instead of finishing this blog, and lets be honest you'd all kill to have a Thursday afternoon nap at work so I don't think you can blame me!

So having got back from halong bay (covered in danni's blog) we had a few hours to kill before we headed to the train station for an overnight train south to Hue. We didn't book early enough and we ended up with seats instead of beds for this 12 hour journey, but it turned out they're like 1st class aeroplane seats and are almost fully reclining, so if you're on a budget it's well worth the saving here! I must admit I did give up for a while though and slept on the floor in the aisle for a good 3 hours, but what's backpacking if not sleeping on an aids infested floor for a few hours with nothing but a travel towel as a pillow, and I might as well make the most of my hepatitis jabs! So a groggy 12 hours later having gone through mountain jungles and little villages (it is well worth staying awake for a lot of it) we arrived fresh faced(ish) in hue.

We said bye to our German buddies who were on the same train, who had taken pity on us as they had beds and so they gave us their left over bread cheese and apples, and we were off to find out hotel. Now word of advice here (seems I'm full of advice doesn't it....) if google maps says its a half hour walk, then google maps isn't actually lying, so don't think you can outsmart them, they're pretty smart. So walking at midday with around 30 kilos of baggage with you for half hour isn't actually the best of ideas! But we trudged on, having stopped every 10 metres, and finally found our hotel! Now the hotel didn't have a pool before we got there, but it does now thanks to the sheer amount of sweat we deposited on their front doorstep! So hotel found, and a cold shower done, we were ready to explore the traditional and cultural capital of Vietnam, Hue!

So keep tuned as there is lots more genius like this as I'm writing Hue's blog too. Yay :) But id like some feedback on this one, informative enough? Enough LOL's? More anecdotes? (Nerd....)

Anyway bye for now, its nap time! And yes I do just nap and eat for anyone who doesn't fully know me, so no need to point that out!

XoXo gossip girl - ssssh its a secret