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, and cost $30 each!! Which was really crap as (being stupid) we had no dollars on us!! Luckily we were allowed on the bus as after 5minutes of trying to explain to the driver that we needed an ATM he finally understood. The bus was horrible. It was absolutely flithy, there were live pigs loaded into the luggage compartment, and sacks of corn filled the floor space on the bus. As usual the bus was literally crammed full of people, and at one point I could see about 5 of the locals being sick (I really dont understand why they get so travel sick). After 9hrs, at 9pm we arrived at what we thought was hanoi, but soon found out we had to get another bus to hanoi, which would take another 3hrs!! We finally arrived at our hostel at 12:30pm, after a very long day, absolutely covered in dust, and after arguing with a taxi driver about a very over priced taxi!! A bad day!!