We left Hoi An with heavy hearts the following day and got on a three hour bus to Hue, where we would change buses to get another overnight sleeper bus to Hanoi. The bus to Hue was fine, no vomiting this time. I did get told off however for putting my feet in the isle...wasn't sure what that was all about till i realised there was a Buddha statue at the front of the bus and I was inadvertently pointing my feet at him, which is a horrendous thing to do in Asia. Ooops. We only had half an hour in Hue this time before we caught the overnight bus. This one was much better as it was half empty and Jen and I had a huge four person style bed to ourselves where we watched movies on the laptop. We are so cool it hurts sometimes.

We arrived in Hanoi really early on the Friday morning and went to find a guesthouse. The one we eventually settled on wasn't the loveliest, and the staff were positively mean...but we were only staying a night so it didn't really matter. I have to say, and I hate to generalise but...the North Vietnamese people we met were'nt as friendly as those in the South. Thats all im going to say on that! ; - ) I liked Hanoi - it is a big city but manages to feel quite small and has a big lake in the middle. We felt all brave that first day and hired bikes to cycle around and see the sights but my god the traffic! its ridiculous so we spent most of the day pushing the bikes around. Seriously the traffic is insane, we saw one moto crash into a wall or something because the driver was texting away. That evening we had a slightly surreal night. We had read (in The Book - aka The Lonely Planet) that you can go out of an evening with $10 and buy 100 beers. Obviously we had to verify this and we found these bia hoy places were loads and loads of local (men) sit around in plastic chairs drinking very cheap beer. And it wasn't half bad either - although we had to endure some strange looks from the men. Later we went to see a water puppet show - I don't have The Book with me now so unfortunately I cant tell you the history behind the water puppets or anything. Basically, there its like a punch and judy show in water where the puppets are acting out old folk tales and legends. The puppeteers (did I just make that up?!) are behind a big screen and control their puppets with long wooden poles. Some of it was amazing actually. It was in Vietnamese so we couldn't understand anything but it was a nice experience. Well for me anyway, not sure Jen was too enthralled as she slept through the whole thing..!
Anyway, dont have much to say in this entry but just you wait till Halong Bay!

Loads and loads of love

Ella

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