Hello Everyone!!!

I am currently in Hue which is on the central coast of Vietnam but I just want to start with an explanation about the bus journey from Vientiane to Hanoi... here we go....

So - i had heard that this journey was absolute tortue so was expecting the worst from the start.. but even that hadn't prepared me!!! You see... the buses in Laos are so old and crappy that they are practically falling apart and the roads are just pot holes galore, every time we went over one i thought the whole bus was going to smash to pieces!!! We got on the bus to find it crammed half with Westerners and half locals, boxes of rice and god knows what else stacked under our feet, chairs which reclined about 2cm and no toilet in sight - we knew our "24 hr" journey was going to be a killer!!! As it happens it actually took 28 hrs.. surprise surprise!!! To make things even worse... the lovely Laos driver whacked on a deafeningly loud Laos kareoke dvd which consisted of 7 love songs - he had this thing on repeat the whole way (literally turned it off for 3 hrs to sleep)... hilarious when we had heard it for the third time but on the 20th... i was NOT happy. We also seemed to stop every hour to pick up yet more boxes of rice which ended up piled high on top of the bus!!! We decided we just had to soak it up and endure the ride... we knew we would laugh about it afterwards. We hardly slept at all it was SO uncomfortable.. BUT... we had loaded up with food to make the journey at least a bit more exciting...!!! We had baguettes, doughnuts, banana cake, popcorn, crisps, cookies, crispy peas and nuts!!! Hence rice and fish diet to compensate.

The journey started off ok... we were squidged in around the rice boxes listening to our ipods over the shockingly loud music and after much wriggling and adjusting had just managed to settle ourselves... then .. BAM... on came the lights and the man came down the bus shouting 'TOILET TOILET' (i seriously think this the only English word in his vocabulary). I realised that it was 3.30am... everyone was settled and some were managing to sleep... then ... the idiot decides to come around teh bus asking us all for our tickets!!! We had to laugh.. this was just typical!!! God knows why they didn't think to do this when we actaully got on the bus!!! After 10 mins waking people and gathering the tickets... the lights went off... we were in complete darkness and it was silent on the bus. We realised that we were in the middle of Laos on a very strange bus with even weirder Lao men and couldn't see anything for miles!!! It was so strange!!! They didn't even tell us what was happening!! I was listening to two Irish girls whispering 'oh my god are they going to kill us' and i was getting myself in a bit of a panic!!! This silence went on for hours!! The sun came up at about 6.30am and I dont think i had actually slept at all that night. I was petrified. Mike had popped another Valium so no amount of prodding/hitting was waking him!!! The driver suddenly switched on the engine and we were on the move again. I think the driver was just having a sleep but they didn't tell us anything at all.. just talked away to each other and expected us to know what was going on!!!

We reached the border at about 7am and it was such an ordeal!!! I cant remember how many times we were on and off of that bus! The Laos immigration was enough on it's own... we were standing around for abhout an hour whilst the rudest, most obnoxious Lao/Vietnamese men pushed past us. I have never experienced anything like it! I suppose it is just their nature... but we were literally grabbed and pushed around by those impatient idiots!!! We had to pay 10,000 kip to exit which was annoying bcs people had told us we didn't so we were trying to get rid of our kip at the border (it has no value elsewhere and is difficult to exchange in other countries) and then realised we barely had enough for this!! After another inspection ordeal we were through.. then arrived at the Vietnam border.. oh my god i was so scared!! These menacing looking officers with old fashioned military looking uniforms were waiting for us with AK47s strapped to their sides. The locals were literally bundling around us... pushing, shoving, shouting... they would do anything to get in front of us and to make it worse.. the officers would inspect one international passport then about 10 of the others making us wait until the last possible moment to let us through! I've never felt so hated actually which is an awful thing to say i know. We spied one of the officers picking on random westerners and asking for their passports then claiming that they had to pay 2000 kip as their passports had been quarrantined!!! We got through eventually and had to pay more to enter the country.. then had to grab our rucksacks and go BACK through the scanner thing... when will they realise that they are doing everything the long way!!! We then had to wait another hour for the officers to thoroughly and I mean THOROUGHLY check the bus... (he did stop on top of teh bus for a cigarette mind you!!!) HILARIOUS! I was surprised they didn't take the bloody engine apart!!! They had torches underneath and everything!!!

Anyway.. as soon as we were on the road in Vietnam.. our driver had one hand PERMANENTLY on the horn and after 5 days here i now realise that this is standard. If you are ever backpacking in Vietnam....i suggest you buy some earplugs bcs they would come in bloody handy!!!

On the way to Hanoi... the number of motorbikes on the roads was steadily increasing until we got to the centre and it was a sea of machinery!!! They dont even stop for red lights!!! Hanoi is a crazy and sometimes scary city. By the time we arrived we were tired, hungry and in desparate need of a shower so when a lady got on the bus offering cabs to the Old Quarter (where we wanted to stay) for a dollar and a show round of her guest house, we agreed. We were in the middle of god knows where and I was desparate for the toilet (they were all trying to charge me and i had no dong!) so we went. BIG MISTAKE!!!

We arrived at the guesthouse in Hanoi and they didn't even have enough rooms for us! We were preparing to pay the cab man and just hunt around when she came after us saying... 'stay at my friends hotel - he charges 14$ per night but stay there tonight for my hotel's rate of 10$ and transfer to mine tomorrow'... we were trying to get rid of this little vietnamese girl but she was so persistant we ended up just going... the rooms were small and not particularly nice but no bed bugs so we took it. We went for a walk after a nap to catch up on lost sleep and found the city at night to be even scarier!!! It was like we were walking ATMs!!! Everyone wanted our money!!! We had something to eat and then got back to the hotel for a nice sleep. We wondered around Hanoi the next day which was ok.. saw some sights and drank the cheapest beer in the world!!! 35p a pint!!! It was ok actually !! Although i needed a bit of sprite in it too!!! :)

Whilst we were walking around we (me, Mike, Rich & Chris) we decided we needed to get some money out. We made our way to the ATM, stopped for a second and within 30 seconds we were surrounded by Vietnamese women who had dressed us up in their traditional conical hats and the wooden beams that they wear over their shoulders with baskets with fruit hanging from them! They grabbed our cameras out of our hands and took photos of us which was funny at the time but then they shoved our cameras back, took their equipment back, loaded us up with bags of pineapple and demanded we pay them!! The bloody cheek of it!! This happened so quickly we were in shock!! Chris took his money out and they literally grabbed teh money from his hands!! He ended up paying about 12 pounds for the experience and his pineapple!!! We had to laugh!! Very cheeky of them though and it kind of put a dampener on our Hanoi experience as then we were wary of EVERYONE and sick of them trying to sell us anything and everything.

We booked onto a 3 day boat trip to Halong Bay which was excellent!! We were on a boat of about 16 people and the boat was just fantastic!!! The food was great and all set out on white table cloths with silver cutlery.. very posh compared to the plastic chairs and manky bowls we're used to now!! We loved every minute and really lapped up the luxury! Halong Bay was amazing in a kind of mysterious way... you would spend 10 days going around teh islands apparently! I would love to do it!! Halong means 'where the dragon descends into the sea' and legend has it that the islands were created by a dragon that lived in the mountains who ran towards the coast and its tail created all the islands. We visited some caves which were MASSIVE with great stalagmites and stalagtites inside and we went through floating villages which were fascinating.. there was even a school in one of the villages and they had pet dogs!! (or maybe they were due to be a dinner treat i dont know). The weather wasnt great which stopped us from kayaking - i was v upset!! But we still had a great time. Had way too much to drink on the first night (we were sleeping in the cabins on the boat!~) and we sat on the upper deck whilst the sun went down and chatted/got the ipod speakers out and drank. It all got a bit out of hand though when Rich decided to climb the mast and all the others joined in. The next thing we knew there was a police boat popped up next to us and they had jumped over onto our boat!!! Mr T (our guide for the tour) told us that they suspected drugs so they were searching the boat.. we had obviously made them suspicious!! We instantly sobered up and were terrified!!! We went straight to bed after that!!

The next day we went to Cat Ba island which was like something out of Jurrasic Park!!! Cat Ba island was declared a national park in '86 to protect the wildlife. We had the option of a trek or cycling but my hangover was in full swing so me, Mike and Chris opted for the cycling along with a little chinese family! It was good to just ride around the island in the fresh air!!!

That night we stayed on Monkey Island.. and yes.. there were some BIG monkeys on the island!! One made its way into Chris' room and just sat there staring at him! We were a little scared of them because Mr T warned us they can become quite agressive. There wasn't a great deal to do on the island and Mike came over very sick....(self inflicted) and so we basically just sat on the beach playing cards with our new American friends!!! That evening we had a lovely dinner and then a bonfire on the beach!!! This was great!! We were all singing songs from our respective countries... Sar called me at one point and i turned around to see the boys entertaining the group with the hokey kokey (sp???!!!)!!! Very funny.

The next day we made our way back to Hanoi and i felt immidiately more tense!!! We were only there a couple of hours though before we got on our sleeper bus to Hue! We were picked up from the centre and literally squidged like sardines into this van.. there were about 15 seats and about 25 of us on there!!! Now this would have really annoyed me a few weeks ago but i think i'm becoming a bit immune to it... it didn't shock me really so i am just learning to roll with it and accept things!!

The bus was great! We had our own little beds but the driver was CONSTANTLY on that horn so i felt like i was being woken up every 2 minutes thinking we were about to crash!!!

We arrived at Hue and it was raining yet again. Me and Mike decided to stay a night and get a good nights sleep whilst Chris and Rich got a later bus to Hoi An. We looked around the Citadel at Hue which was interesting and saw a few more sights. Overall though i felt things were a little ruined by the weather. I'm just disappointed that it's been wet for about a week now and it's kinda stopping us doing things which is a shame...

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