Hanoi is shoppers heaven!! The streets are named and organised according to what they sell, so you'll have silk street and silver street, there are even rows of shops that just just sell duvets and rows of shops that just sell pens! After looking round the shops in the morning we the prison and womens museum in the afternoon and in the evening went to see the famous water puppet show, which was really good (especially as we had front row seats!).

We checked into a different hotel in the morning and compared to the last few days it was complete luxury! We then walked around Hanoi which is MENTAL!!! The pavements are filled with parked motorbikes and the roads have a constant flow of traffic which constantly beep their horns (which seem to be used instead of indicators!). At junctions the traffic flows from each direction and just people in cars/motorbikes just swerve around each other. When you cross the r...

A very early start today as we caught the 7am 'bus' to Nam Khan at the border. I say bus but it was a pick-up with roof and seats. About 2hrs into the 3hr journey a local woman was sick over the some of the seats which was nice. The border crossing itself was easy, and the Vietnam border was very organised. Thats when it stopped being easy! We realised that the bus to hanoi was 9hrs (6hrs, then another 3 hrs after a short stop), when we thought it would be 4hrs, ...