The last half of Vietnam has been pretty much the total opposite of the first half, and about a million times more fun, even if pretty much everything has gone wrong! First step of operation escape from intrepid was to book into a hostel, where Hue backpackers is pretty much the only option, and a really nice option at that. Next mission was to actually make some friends so that the whole thing wasn't totally pointless, I'm so out of practice! But obviously the friendly backpacker vibe came through and I ended up sitting on the pavement outside the backpackers talking to a guy called Mckenzie till about 3am, this is what happens when I don't have any proper conversations for two weeks!

There was a constant barrage of cyclo drivers harassing us the whole time though. I dunno why but the Vietnamese technique of trying to get people to use their services seems a lot more irritating to me than the friendly 'tuk tuk? tuk tuk?' of Bangkok... and it's especially bad here, they just follow you all the way down the street spewing off a babble of "Hello where you from? You from America? Where you going? Cyclo? Free cyclo you no pay? Marijuana? One spliff? Two spliff? What's your name? I love you! HAHAHAHAHA" Jesus Christ. Not a massive fan of Hue as a city, I just wanted to shout at it to SHUT UP for one second.

Next day we rented three motorbikes between a group of six people we'd met over breakfast (Mckenzie, Katie, Sam, Kerstin, Marije and me) and headed out to Elephant springs which are about two hours out of Hue. Feeling much more intrepid already, even if I did refuse to actually drive, Vietnamese roads are crazy (lorry overtaking car overtaking five bikes all on the wrong side of the road etc.) and I'm a really bad bike driver! So we set off with two of the girls on each bike and Katie had a go at riding for the first time, and it was all going smoothly and we were all enjoying the views... aaaand then we lost them. Katie and Sam were behind us going through a mountain road one minute but once we pulled over they just didn't come through. We went back to look for them but they were nowhere to be seen. We spent hours riding up and down the road (it's the one they rave on about in Top Gear, really twisty) but couldn't find them so went to the springs to see if they were there already. Nope.

It started pouring it down so we stayed at the springs and frolicked about in the waterfalls for a bit in the rain, assuming the girls had just turned back. The rain didn't stop so we ended up staying there all day, it's a really nice place with not that many westerners but millions of locals in their lifejackets (for some reason hardly anyone in Asia can swim?!) so we got stared at a bit. Anyway at about 4pm we decided to head back so we wouldn't be riding in the dark... but obviously that would be too easy, and we got a puncture. Motorbike maintenence is pretty top class here (it has to be!) so the mechanic was there up the mountain in no time, but couldn't get some bolt off so we had to sit there for ages playing cards as it got darker and darker. Finally got a new tyre on so we set off down the slippery wet road towards home. Got to the highway and everything was ok again and we were riding into the most amazing sunset convinced that we'd find the girls sitting in the hostel. Buuut no of course we weren't allowed to be happy for too long, cos we got ANOTHER puncture (I'm actually cursed, it's like that time at home where I got three flat tyres in one week!) and ended up taking hours to get home getting whipped in the face by flies in the pitch dark with the other crazy bikes. Definitely a far cry from the 'intrepid' tour!

Got to the hostel and were slightly terrified to find that the girls weren't there and hadn't contacted anyone. While we were riding down the mountain we came around the corner and the tree in front of us looked so much like the grim reaper that it actually made me jump, so I was slightly freaked out that this was some sort of final destination style premonition (science went a bit out of the window) and we were all trying not to panic while discussing maybe ringing some hospitals to check, while laughing nervously a lot. Decided they might have gone on to the beach we were considering staying at and that it was too soon to freak out so we decided to go out and get drunk instead! Had a pretty good night actually even if we did all feel a bit guilty about it!

Aaaaanyway to cut a very long story a bit shorter, they didn't turn up in the morning, we all freaked out some more and got the hostel to ring the police and hospitals to no avail, I had to catch my flight to Hanoi so had to say a very nervous goodbye, until FINALLY Sam commented on my facebook that they were alive. Never felt so relieved! No idea how it all happened really, there was a lot of times where we must have just missed each other and why they didn't ring us I have no idea, but all was well in the end! Turns out that was actually the best day I'd had in WEEKS despite all the bad luck (my camera broke too), so happy to be free!