Never travel by camel!

Well, Camel Travel sleeper buses to be precise. Worst sleeper bus to date - Mark had so little leg room he couldn't stretch out at all and spent 12 hours in a contorted position that any Yoga Instructor would be proud of. The bus was overbooked to start with and two passengers were ejected for 'apparent' problems with their tickets. We then stopped every half hour to pick up more passengers who were given blankets and made to sleep sardine-like in the aisles. We had paid extra for a bus with a loo but couldn't get to it because of all the people! There were some pretty desperate people rushing off to the loos when we got to Hanoi (including us!)

The bus then dropped us 8km away from central Hanoi...our only option was to get one of the 'free' taxis who would take you to affiliated guest houses; we were assured that if we didn't want to stay it would only cost a reasonable 25,000 Dong...like hell! When we didn't want to stay the taxi driver tried to make us pay 4 times as much and Kim ended up having a row with him in the street! Good start to Hanoi!

We found a nice hotel 'Manh Dung' complete with resident kitten - very cute! We were there a day before we realised that the Australian couple we had met in virtually every stop in Vietnam was in the hotel room opposite. Weird but nice to catch up with them! We also met up with Evan and Alicia a couple of times (who we first met on the plane from the UK to Nairobi and then bumped into across Africa). Great to compare travel notes over a glass of vino or a Halida beer!

We booked a trip to Halong Bay (seperate blog) and Tam Coc which were fantastic. Tam Coc was great - we were rowed down rivers and through caves amidst spectacular scenery of giant limestone 'karsts' - very relaxing! We also had a good laugh with our rower who admired Kim's white skin, asked when we were having babies and made us matching necklaces out of water lilies (Mark looked good in his!)

The rest of our time was spent planning for China, getting our hair cut (7 quid for both of us) and meeting lovely random Australian people who gave us their email addresses and invited us to visit. Very friendly people the Aussies - we love em.

As we are leaving Vietnam tomorrow we thought we'd share some observations about the country:

1) Dead people are buried anywhere - you can see an elaborate tomb in the middle of a paddy field, in a garden next to the veg patch or at the side of the road.

2) Dog meat is a speciality...as is cat. We declined these meats but Kim did tuck into grilled goat!

3) There are 2 million mopeds in Hanoi and no rules of the road - walking across the road is like playing russian roulette. We close our eyes and hope for the best!

4) Vietnam is a nation of tiny people. It is highly depressing to be sized up by shop assistants as 'Extra Large.'