Apparently iv been told that its about time that icontributed something tothis blog so im doing Hanoi. I appologise in advance over any mistakes or such.

After blagging our way into first class seats on the plane we arrived in Bangkok. We stayef there for a couple of days and decided its gota be one ofthe best cities we have been to. it just seems to be buzzing everywhere you go. and its SO clean...unlike everywhere in india. on one of the days we went to this shopping center which is ment to be one of the biggest in asia...and it doesn't dissapoint. it really puts the trafford center to shame. there was seven floors with well just everything. we also discovered mr doughnut in bangkok. you just line up and pick out as many doughnuts as you want n pile them up on a tray...fat i know but it was like a dream come true. it was really cheap aswell...like 15p a doughnut. we need to find another one. in the evening some guys started doing some sort of sow in the middle of the street which basically involved them banging drums for an hour...its was really pretty cool and most of the people in the area were dancing around.

anyway after our short visit to bangkok we headed to Hanoi (in the crappy economy seats this time). we ended up staying at a cool little place next to a lake in the centre of town. it cost a little more than usual however they gave us free breakfast and internet so it worked out probly cheaper. anyway we went out for a walk round this lake however to get to it we had to cross the road. this may not seem like such a big task but if you saw the amount of traffic and how non of them slowed down or stopped you would realise why a change of pants was neccesary on our first attempt. we decided it would be best to see how the locals did it, so we watched a woman crossing the road. its a very special procediour in vietnam we descovered as you just have to slowly walk across the road and basically trust that the people on the mopeds (about 80% of the vehicles) will swerve out of your way. i think we have mastered it now though.

anyway we eventually managed to get walking round this lake and we decided to have a sit down to take in the atmosphere and the view (not because of the sudden colour change of our pants while crossing) when these two girls jumped up beside us and just started chatting. it was really cool as they just wanted to talk and practise there english and didnt want to try to sell us anything...which was a nice change. i even checked my bag after n she hadnt taken anything it was good stuff. later on we went tothis little island temple type thing in the middle of the lake. inside was this HUGE turtle. well it was dead but it was preserved. it was like 2 and a half meters.

the next day was a bit different from anything we've done. we went to see ho chi minh...the real ho chi minh. after waiting for an age we got into this big building with armed guards all the way through it. as we walked through the building it got colder untill we got into the mystery room. in it was the preserved body of ho chi minh just lying there on a raised bed with 4 guards around him. it was a very strange experience. you wernt alowed to take anything in with you and you couldnt smile or even put your hands in your pockets or you would be throw out. after seeing the body you could walk around the rest of the complex and see his house and garage and presidential palace and other such things.

later we went to the literature temple which was pretty cool. inside there were people playing cool little instruments who obviously expected some money for playing.

the next day the heavens opened. it rained all day and all night very heavily. so as you do when it rains we went in search of some munchies. we spotted a cool looking place in our little guide book thing and decided it was the place to go. after making our way through countless little streets getting soaked we were told by a cyclo driver that the place had moved. (cyclos are really cool little things. there like bikes with digger buckets on the front that you sit in and get driven around). we decided not to bother going there because the place was miles away. we decided to just go toa little cafe that had people in it (we usually assume (dont start dad lol) this means the food is good) and ate. later we found another little doughnut shop and ate there aswell. wasnt quite mr doughnut but it was ok.

that night we went to see the water puppets. we were in a sort of mini thearter with the stage being a pond and a raised bit for the band. it started withthe band doing a couple of songs..then the madness started. the show was just 17 small stories shown with puppets in water. it was things like a man going fishing and getting dragged along by the fish to dragons dancing and breathing out real fire, all the time the band playing. it was really cool stuff.

we didnt do too much the next day i dont think exept go to this indoor market which wasnt very good. it was still raining all day again. we went to an ice cream place which sold really good ice cream for about 24p. we also found pho 24 which sells some of the best noodles around.

later we walked to the railway station to book our tickets to sapa in 4 days time afterwe had been to ha long bay. however the woman behind the desk didnt speak a word of english and just got on my t*** because she kept repeating the same thing that i wasnt asking about so we ended up just booking it through the hotel.

anyway that will do for now. i think theres some woman at the door dying to show me her shawl.