23rd may we left hoi an on a bus to hue, then heading straight for a motorbike tour of the city....we ate lunch at a nunnery,saw the perfume river, visited the rice museum where an 80-odd yr old legend of a lady taught us about the life cycle of rice, we visited a pagoda and saw chanting monks.. but i have to say the highlight was when i burned my leg on the exhaust of the bike which is only just healing a week later!!!! though once id got over the fear of the busy roads where the vietnamese seem to have no rules, i really enjoyed the ride! (as a passenger of course, cant imagine being a driver there!!)we went out for tea then that night turned into a semi late one/semi drunk one! we found a cool bar where they let us choose the music on youtube, bonus!

24th/25th may i lay in and missed the visit to the citadel, we then had a looong train journey to hanoi which started at 4pm. the train was nice like the first one we had, until we discovered the mice!! needless to say i still mananged to sleep as ever! dropped bags at the hotel in hanoi at 5am then had to wait 3 hrs for the bus to halong bay...... when we got there we head straight on to our boat for a boat ride of the bay! the views were amazing! much better then in the pics even!! the weather was lovely for us which was good stuff!! we had yummy seafood lunch, we had a stop midway where we had an hr to swim in the middle of the bay.... took me some courage to jump off the boat! though once i did i then jumped off the top deck! :) we also visited some caves on one of the islands!......that night we went out for food which was interesting, there were no other tourists around as people do day trips or tend to stay on boats, so the locals didnt speak much english in the restaurants, however we managed to find a place that had karaoke and an english book too! woop!... 6 of us girls did a little rendition of 4 songs in a row, madonna, britney, whitney and abba! some of the locals actually left hahaha! we loved it though, and even managed to get a place to so takeaway chips for us on the way home!

26th may we got the bus back to hanoi.... started with a walk in town and went for lunch, then visited the temple on the lake which has an embalmed turtle (some local legend), found a chain coffee shop where we got some nice coffee and cake, then bk to hotel to get ready for our water puppet show! which was good, not what i expected but a taste of their culture! that night daniella arrived and we went for drinks and food at a posh rooftop bar in the centre which had a great view over city!

27th may morning of site seeing... we learned about ho chi minh, went to the mausoleum, saw the palace, the house on stilts, and the museum...then lunch...then we got a guide and went to the temple of literature which was really interesting! afternoon of shopping.. me anna and tim went to buy coffee but not before some sniffing and tasting! the vietnamese coffee is so strong but i actually started to quite like it! it has replaced tea for me as nowhere really does an english cuppa! me and anna then got lost lookn for beads, the streets in hanoi are like a maze in the old quarter.... they have street names which mean the product that they sell eg tool street, which was quite peculiar but original!! we gave up after an hour. that night was a big night as we said goodbye to 4 travellers and met a few new ones for the trip! lots of alcohol, ,y first ngiht that has involved sambuca.. and after no sleep and with a 15 hr bus journey departing at 530am to leave for laos i was seriously regretting it! the roads were all mountainous and windy..... urgh!