Hello!

So we're in Vietnam...my last stop (apart from the flight from Thailand...) sob!

Just fill you in on the past week or so;

We got to Vang Vieng in Laos, which is where we went for basically a long piss-up. The nightlife is great, and the day...life? Basically, you get drunk all day and all night. The poor locals...their little town is full of drunk or drugged up Westerners! Fun for us though.

We got a 6 hour (crap) mini bus, which consisted of no sleep on account of the long, windy roads. The views were great though as we were heading up into the mountains. We met some guys on this bus aswell, who we went out with that night. We arrived quite late and I guess we sort of forgot about dinner...well I ended up drinking a fair bit anyway and the whole night is a massive question mark. We went to 'Bucket Bar' which had little fires everywhere, a nice sitting area and loads of hammocks. And when that shut everyone moves next door to 'Limbo Bar'. Yes, there was a FIREY LIMBO. Yes, I did do it.

The next day Fizz, Olivia and Carl (our hairy kiwi friend) went tubing for a couple of hours....but I felt so crap I couldn't go! Recovered well enough for that night though as I slept and Carl bought me dinner...nice!

There isn't a lot to do there in the day if you don't go tubing. We usually woke up late anyway, chilled for a while then showered and got ready for the evenings. There were a couple of bars that played Family Guy and Friends so we spent a good few hours in there catching up on a very missed TV!

The last day, I had my first and only day of tubing. Was so good though! It was a lovely sunny day, we arrived at the first bar and bought a bucket between 3 and chilled along the river in our bikinis. As we moved on we picked up some free shots and then moved to the next! We spent most of our day at one particularly lively bar. It had a hosey thing to cool off with which was fab, and a swing! We had a few beers...chilled out...met some people and had a chat....then Olivia, Fizz and I got up to do our famous 'Hot Rod' dance move...("IS THAT THE HITLER DANCE?" "No. Idiot.")...there was a guy filming the whole day which was cool (they play the video at a bar that night, we were going to buy it but there was a power cut so they couldn't do it for us :( ), they caught us doing a human pyramid, lying down to receive free shots, me and fizz on the swing (you hang off it and then let go into the river), spray painting ourselves (everyone comes back covered in spray paint. I had a big willy on my stomach and turd written across my chest. And a lot more!), except it definately isn't made for skin. IT STINGS! Olivia and Fizz did a mud wrestle and came back grey with mud. Think Muddy Avatars. Dirty b****es. By this time is was around 6pm so everyone had left and it had started to storm. We hopped in a Tuk Tuk home and went out again for our last night!

The day after was when we left for Vietnam. It took us 34 hours in total, and we were told 22. This bus journey was nicknamed 'The Death Bus'. I now see why. The driver was incapable of driving for 30 mins without a fag break, so we were continuously making pointless stops, our bus was two hours late and so badly timed that we had to sleep over-night on the bus in a car park because the border was shut (?!), they played very loud, very annoying music till about midnight, the AC was shockingly bad, I was pretty much sat on an Asian mans lap, there were a lot of Asian people on this bus, and as lovely as they are (although these were not) they were VERY loud, and very annoying. One guy hit Olivia on the head so she would wake up and move so he could shut a window. We also noticed how pushy they all are!

The border was a nightmare, so system whatsoever. You basically stand in a group shoving your passports through a little window, and wait...constantly being pushed about (as obviously, only English people queue). You then have to wait whilst a lady shows you your passport and you have to grab it while you can! It was a nightmare.

The bus took ages after that too. Then we were dropped alongside a motorway. A 'nice' man came on to say that for $1 we can have a ride in a mini-bus...ofcourse! If we didn't do that we were absolutely b*****ed so we all squashed into this bus. 15 minutes later we were outside the hotel that he obviously gets commission for. Doesn't matter though, it's $6 per night and has air con and the like. We're not used to this luxury (as we stayed in a room which we nicknamed 'the urinal' for the previous 5 nights).

Hanoi is really nice...very busy! Different as the past few places we've been to it's been pretty quiet traffic wise. On the mini bus in, I saw a huge truck cut up some moped riders and then our bus hit one itself. The roads are manic and you just have to walk out and hope for the best when crossing them. We walked around today and saw the views...shopped....and ate dinner at City View cafe, over-looking the (famous but can't remember the name) river where the memorial is.

Tomorrow we're off on a boat tour of Halong Bay...an overnighter! Should be really good..and we're hoping there are some fun people on there (rather than old couples...BORING!).

2 weeks 5 days till home...

Byee! xx