We arrived in Hanoi the next day at about 5am. This was not good as nothing was open and it was already boiling and we were quite tired. Anyway...some genius (that would be me!) suggested that instead of spending another day milling about in Hanoi we should go and find a swimming pool! So we did, and spent the rest of the day lazing about the pool..and managed to have a free shower which is always nice when you're doing lots of overnight travelling. Being the ladies of luxury we are instead of walking back we got cyclo's which was so much fun!!! They are essentially wheelchairs attached to bicycle thingies and you get wheeled around in them. I have resisted getting a cyclo before because of how old the guys are who cycle them but the cyclo men in Hanoi were relatively strong and chipper so I didn't feel so bad.

Later that evening we got a minibus which was supposed to take us to our proper sleeper bus...which I guess it did but turned out the sleeper bus was full. Much pushing and shoving and shouting at us commenced and didn't stop until there were about 10 of us standing on a sleeper bus, destined hopefully for another one with some seats. The people who worked for the company were so rude to us it was actually quite funny - shoving us on the bus then pulling us off it and just shouting in our faces in Vietnamese. Anyway...we did eventually make it to another bus where thank the lord we had seats/beds. The journey was pretty uneventful apart from a toilet in which the light switched off every 5 seconds. We arrived at Hue where we had about a 5 hour stop over before we got another bus to Hoi An, and so I went for a wander around some big old ruined palace which was very nice. We finally got to Hoi An later that evening, dropped off miles out of town, and got a moto back to the hotel we had stayed in the last time we were in Hoi An. At this point we were completely knackered and travelled out.

We spent the following day cycling around Hoi An - ahh it was nice to be back! Unfortunately we had to ship out of there again the next day as we had a flight booked all the way back down to Saigon, where we had started this whirlwind tour of Vietnam!! I know we are badasses flying and everything but on the bus it would have taken two whole days...and as Jen was flying home from Saigon we didn't have the luxury of time. Or money...and the plane was cheaper. We splurged on a hotel in Saigon as it was Jen's last night in Asia and had a farewell dinner that night...obviously it had to be an Indian! Half asleep and grumpy I begrudgingly said goodbye to Jen very early the next day as she had her flight home. All alone I went back to Saigon, moved into a dingy guesthouse I could afford and spent the rest of the day milling about Saigon. I was going to stay in Vietnam a couple of extra days but, to be honest, at this point I had sort of had enough and was looking forward to getting back to Cambodia. I really enjoyed Vietnam and it has some of the most beautiful scenery and towns in all the Southeast Asian countries I've been to, but in the end I found it all very full on and at times quite aggressive so decided to call it a day, take my fantastic memories, and scoot back over to Cambodia!!! All by myself......!

Lots of love

Ella
xxxxx