Friday, the train to Hanoi only took 3 hours, by time we found a hotel it was 17:30, we quickly freshened up then went for a Indian... Delicious!

Saturday we were up early to visit Uncle Ho! We went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum which was very strange, we stood in a long queue of Vietnamese people paying their respects and few tourists. The rules of the queue were enforced by a number of guards, visitors must be silent, and walk in two lines, hands must not be in pockets, nor arms crossed, smoking, drinking, eating, photography and video taping are also not permitted anywhere inside the mausoleum. We walked in a continuous movement around the room containing Ho Chi Minhs body which lies in a glass case with dim lights, spooky! Next to the Mausoleum stands the Presidential Palace, Ho Chi Minh refused to live in the grand structure for symbolic reasons so he built a traditional Vietnamese stilt house and carp pond on the grounds, we walked around the grounds where he lived and couldn't believe how simplistic it really was! After, we went to get some food, Bun Cha, a Vietnamese dish of grilled pork and noodles, a dish which originated from Hanoi. We went back to the hotel to rest and freshen up for a couple of hours before exploring some more, we walked to the Cathedral then to Hoan Kiem Lake, the lake is really famous in Vietnam for some turtle giving the King a sword, it's also the most scenic part of the city and there were lots of couples having photo shoots done. We found a bar with a rooftop which overlooked the lake where we had some cocktails, after we found a bar which had a deal to buy a bottle of vodka which came with some coke and water and shisha which we thought was a grand idea. After the bottle of vodka things start to get a bit foggy, we went for dinner and had really good pies! And some wine... Then we thought it was a good idea to go back to the bar to buy another bottle of vodka (in Laura and Kates defence they did not touch the second bottle and tried sobering up buy drinking water), after we went to another bar, then another until everything closed and we stumbled back into our hotel at 4:30am obviously waking up the reception staff to let us in... Woops!

Sunday we woke all very hungover.... Some worse than others (KATE). We had to check out however Michael was staying an extra night so we were able to lay around in his room until it was safe to stand vertical! We went for some breakfast/lunch which was delicious but hard to get down then retired back to Michaels room. At 17:00 we had to say our goodbyes as we were catching our 24 hour bus to Loas. We had a great time with Kate, Max and Michael and feel very lucky we were able to share our experience with them, thanks to them for a fun couple of weeks and especially to Kate and Max for letting us stay!