We could have done Tai Chi if we'd gotten up at 6.30am. Take note of the choice of words: 'could have' and 'if.' The people that had gotten up at stupid-o-clock-in-the-morning, said it was a bit of an anti climax, only lasting all of 10 minutes. We were glad we'd decided to give it a skip. We joined everyone after 7am for breakfast (which still wasn't vegetarian friendly) and I had 2 slices of toast, again. For a ship that over-catered on lunch and dinner, they definitely needed to spruce up their breakfast options, I wasn't the only fussy eater on the trip, for once.

There was an option to go on a cave trek, but Edd wasn't keen on joining, so we stayed in our room, packed and dozed for an hour and half while the others went Indiana Jones-ing. Edd's bag had somehow increased in weight, significantly, and we knew we'd need to drop some at some point, some how. The other people returned a little later than expected, and we all had to vacate our rooms at 9.30am, even though we were only having lunch at 11am, having eaten breakfast at 7.30am. We all sat around in the dining room playing on our phones, reading or chatting, not wanting to soak up any more sun - we'd all gone a little pink from the day before.

11am came and the ridiculous amounts of food we'd grown accustomed too over the previous 2 days, had halved in size. We joked that it was because we'd all filled in the satisfaction questionnaires already. We cleaned every plate in front of us, for once, while our cruise ship took us back to the harbour; we couldn't believe the time had passed so quickly. We made arrangements with the British couple and Melbourne girls to meet up for dinner in Hanoi, at The Little Hanoi restaurant.

We got off the cruise ship and jumped on the small boat that ferried us between places. It was amusing that we all had to wear life jackets where officials could see us, every other time they hadn't bothered; this is despite the fact that the zippers were rusted off, there were no whistles and I could basically fit 3 of me in my one. The only good it could do in an emergency is indicate that there may or may not be a person, in the vicinity, of the empty floating attire. Considering the fact that a British woman had died on a capsized slow boat in Laos (the exact same journey we'd taken 2 weeks prior) one would think better safety measures and gear would be implemented.

Anyway, we got off and moved through the masses of tourists to our mini van, got on and set off on the 3 hour journey back to Hanoi. We stopped off, half way again, at another overpriced art market; not for the disabled, but with the same pushy salespeople that tell you what you have is different (and inferior) to what they're selling, even though they've never seen what you've already bought. (We were getting seriously annoyed at this point with the vultures and their tricks, this was not the Asia we'd expected).

We got dropped off after 5pm at our old hotel and used their bathroom to shower and freshen up. They had very kindly offered to let us use their facilities before our train ride later in the evening. We then made our way to the where the Melbourne girls were staying and picked them up, all walking together to the restaurant in the north of the small lake (where we had the picnic). We got a little lost at one point, but managed to get there in one piece, with all our bags in tow.

We ate the most amazing meal of our lives: deep fried squid in sesame seed, garlic prawns and chicken with 5 tastes (I had a small taste of the chicken, but just a small one). We borderline licked our plates clean when the British couple walked in.. They'd gotten distracted on the exercise machines in the park and lost track of time. I escorted them to the 'hip and happening' bar that offered a free cocktail for ladies, 2 for 1 cocktails and fabulous shisha. I then ran back to to fetch Edd, the girls and my bags.

We walked back to the 'hip and happening' bar and ordered cocktails and shisha; Edd challenged the British guy to foosball and his girlfriend, as well as the Melbourne girls, took up the challenge. (The Melbourne girls took turns). I guarded the bags, the cocktails and the shisha, too concerned I'd break a nail, or even worse - the ice in my drink would melt. Crisis.

We all left at 9pm: the British couple went to Little Hanoi for dinner, the Melbourne girls were going shopping, (it being their first night in Hanoi) and Edd and I got a taxi to the train station, again. We'd literally replayed the evening from the Wednesday before, but added more people to it. We were sad to say goodbye to our new friends, but we'd see them again in Australia in a few months. We now had 4 friends in Melbourne, having started with 0, 7 weeks earlier; we were doing well.

We walked around looking for someone that sold sandwiches with Laughing Cow cheese, and managed to find a woman down a side road. She spoke no English, but we ordered 3 baguettes, using a series of miming gestures. We'd be pro's at charades if we played now, with all the actions we'd taken to doing. We'd previously even gone as far as doing chooka chooka train noises with the actions for the train station and vomiting motions for no tuna fish, but we'd drawn the line at doing any chicken noises or actions.

We got on our carriage and found our 4 berth room. We were sharing with 2 locals that spoke great English and lived in America; we had hoped we'd get a room to ourselves again being a 15 hour journey. It was no such luck however, so we climbed into our mini beds and got settled for the night, hoping we could sleep for most of it.