Hi all It's my birthday. Woo hoo! Now I normally love my birthday. But for some reason I woke up with a head like Fred West, and wanted a body to match. The fact we were woken by our guide ringing the room and telling us we had to get up didn't help. Maybe it was one too many beers the night before, maybe a little bit of homesickness, maybe it was the bloke we were forced to eat dinner with still riling me. Maybe a little of all of it. But i was not a happy chicken. Maybe it was that i didn't have a present to open, and maybe it was the fact that Mand hadn't got me a card, or brought the one her mum and dad had left with her for me. Yep. Pot. Kettle. Black. But it's my birthday and I'll cry if I want to. We got downstairs and were rushed up the road to the same restaurant as the night before. Things did not bode well. And they didn't fail to disappoint. A dry baguette with barely enough jam to fit on the knife. I decide to skip it and just have a coffee. Our by now annoying guide told me that if I wanted coffee, I'd have to pay extra. This is the only time so far that we were expected to pay extra for coffee on an excursion (as well as been served s*** food - not once but twice) and I nearly spat in his face (a trifle harsh, but please...). Instead I tried to kill him with a look and had a cigarette. As the minibus pulled up, I realised we had neither cigarettes nor water to last and decided to go get some. With the guide hurrying after me telling me to get on the bus, I gave him another look and stopped to buy cigarettes. They didn't have any cold water, so I carried on walking til I found some. The guide almost put his hand on my arm to stop me, looked at me and though better of it. God I'm tough. Grrrr. Eventually after shouting at the guide that I was getting water and the bus would have to wait, and after trying two more shops, neither of which had cold water either, I found one and made sure I took my time paying. All the while the guide was behind me, not quite daring to say anything else, just kind of fidgeting, jumping from foot to foot. He had this habit of constantly rushing you to do things like his life depended on it, and then when you got wherever it was he wanted you to go, you found yourself standing around for 20 minutes waiting. I'd had enough. We got back to the already crammed bus and I slipped in beside Mand and sat glowering at my book for the next stage of the journey. After a while, we arrived at a jetty and were walked down to our boat. It was one of the grotty ones we'd seen on the first day, with no sundeck and wooden benches. Some days just aren't meant to be. The only good thing was that while we were waiting to board, these 4 huge guys (I think maybe German) grabbed this Vietnamese guy, put him in an armlock and started shouting 'Money' at him. He kept struggling and they kept grabbing him tighter, and I seriously thought one of them was going to smash his lights out. But alas, I was denied even this small measure of amusement when the old bill turned up. The guys explained that this guy had stolen 300 dollars off them and the rest of their group the day before at the cave (more a scam than an outright theft I'd imagine). Either way, they'd recognised him and frogmarched him to his boat. The old bill lead them all away to get it all sorted out (doubtful, but you never know). Oh yeah, something which did make me laugh was that as a boat was pulling in next to ours it's prow smashed the side of ours, breaking one of the windows. This meant we were treated to the site of two Vietnamese seriosly going at it (verbally at least). It was that kind of day. Thinking a nap might improve my seriously bad humour, I managed to get almost comfortable on one of the benches and snoozled for most of the way. It didn't help. I woke up with what I'm sure muscular distrophy must feel like, and grumpier than ever. We disembarked and were put into an even smaller van than before. We pulled up somewhere along the way and taken to a restaurant for lunch. This place was worse than before. Six of us got served on one table. A small plate of cucumber, a small plate of spring rolls, a small plate of chips, a small plate of stir fried vegetables, and some really grotty looking generic 'meat' dish. Not for me. It wasn't helped when I looked over at our guides table to see him tucking into some seriously tasty looking food, and loads of it. This sent my gauges through the roof, so I decided to just leave the table,have a cigarette or six, try and calm down and look forward to a serious feast at dinner. There was also a guy in there, who when I walked in looked at me and laughed. Then he said something to his mates and they all looked, then they all laughed. When I'd gone outside to smoke myself better, him and his mates left and he turned and caught sight of me, pointed and laughed again. The laugh lost conviction when he realised I was staring right at him (superman eye lasers) and it kind of tailed off. This time his mates didn't join in. They all just kind of walked off with forced nonchalance, him looking fairly embarassed. This just pissed me off even more. Grumpy, hungry, fed up with everybody and just about ready to go home, eat and go to bed. All good so far then. We got back on the bus and were told that me and Mand would have to change buses at some point because this one wasn't actually going to Hanoi. Maybe it'll be bigger at least, I naively hoped. When we stopped about an hour later, we got off and saw a bus even more crowded than our one. You've got to be taking the piss. They were. Ours was over the road. And even more crowded. Now, these aren't public buses. If they were then fair play. But they're not. They're f***in tour buses. So to me it's all just a piss take. Cram them in and see how many you can suffocate. The guide on the other bus wanted Mand to sit in the front with him (funnily enough) while I was to be packed away in a space about 2 foot square. Honestly. I don't think I could've fitted in it. Mand took one look and graciously offered to sit there so at least I'd have some semblance of legroom in the front. As I got on, I looked behind and there was my friend from the lunch restaurant. He glanced at me then studiously looked at the floor until I stopped looking at him. I really am sooooooo tough. It's ridiculous :o) I ended up next to the driver so I didn't have any legroom at all. But I shoved the guides bag over to his side, put my bag on top of it and pushed my feet into the footwell. This left me pretty much ok, but left him with about 2.3 inches of space. Good. He was only 4 foot 2 anyway. This bus was hot. Ridiculously so. One guy in the back was close to passing out due to not feeling well. So he asked to have the aircon turned up. This sparked a row with the driver, who eventually turned the aircon right off and opened his window. This sparked an even bigger row. He turned it back on to number 2 and we continued on our merry little way. I tell you, there was something in the air that day. At the next rest stop, it emerged that these drivers get a certain amount of petrol money. If they save money on petrol, thats money in their pocket. Air con burns petrol. Hmmm not difficult to see what's going on here then. A couple of lads said that if he'd just put the air con on full, then they'd pay him. Good shout in my book. He then denied that the aircon could go any higher than number 2. What about number 3? Thats just a fan. Why do you have to lie? You think we don't have cars like this in England? We said we'd pay you. Number 3 is just a fan. Fine, whatever, but could you just leave it on 2 then?. Ok. Before we knew it, we were back in dear old Hanoi, just in time for rush hour. This means that the bus dropped us off by the lake rather than take us all the way back to our hotel, but by this time we just wanted to get off, get showered and get drunk. I'd actually cheered up a bit by then (at long last) and was looking forward to dinner, water puppets and drunkenness, and for the first time that day was feeling like partying. We showered, picked up the other two and went for a huge meal. And the food was spot on. Now I'm getting in the mood. A couple of beers and its off to see the water puppets. And they did not disappoint. It was magical almost. The puppets are controlled by long sticks running underneath a curtain (and the puppets), behind which stand the puppeteers, up to their thighs in water. It was genuinely enthralling. Even more enthralling was the music. Before the show, the band played a few songs and one of them was a solo on this instrument. It had one string, and a stick to adjust tension and to give it a wobbly sound. It was the most eerily beautiful thing I'd ever heard. More so than Mand singing in the shower. Which to be fair is just eerie. I want one (said in my best Little Britain voice). I tried to buy a cd afterwards, but they only had dvds. So I bought one anyway. Chances of me ever watching it? Yep, slim indeed. Feeling the best I'd felt all day, we headed out to a rooftop bar to sample their cocktails. Much to my delight and no small measure of amusement, Laura ordered a Snowball. Haven't seen one in years. My mum used to make them for us at Christmas when were kids. I can't stand them now (advocaat? really? why would you?), but it was still good to see. Off to another bar that we'd been told stayed open all night, where we attempted to drink our way through their huge cocktail list, while playing drinking games. Laura somehow managed to get control of the dj booth (something she'd done a few times since - no I don't know how either) and the 'classic' tunes were coming thick and fast. I think it has something to do with how famous Laura is out here that she can get away with it. She constantly gets random asians coming up and asking to have their photo taken with her. One guy at Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum didn't even ask. Just walked up to her, shoved his phone in her face and took a pic. It's happening so often we're thinking about getting her an agent and renting her out for kids' parties. Round about 3 o'clock ish, Mand and Laura shot off (well, blindly staggered off, holding each other up) leaving me and Kimbers to carry on drinking. Not the best move. Somewhere along the way, the alcohol really kicked in and we both had a Jekyll and Hyde moment. We went mad at each other. To be fair, I think I probably started it (well, it had been one of those days, and no I can't remember what it was about) but within an hour of the other two leaving, we were screaming obscenities at each other, demanding the other one leave and getting as close to getting chucked out as is possible in a place where they make every effort to throw you in. Eventually, we both staggered back to the hotel doing our best to have nothing to do with each other, where I woke Mand up just to have a go at her (sorry beautiful) before collapsing into a blissful coma like sleep. In my defense, such as it is, I'd barely eaten all day and somehow thought getting drunk would make me happier, not angrier. Some people never learn eh? Well, the next couple of days were spent nursing a serious hangover, drinking water, smoking cigarettes, eating and trying to be nice to everyone. Kimbers bag (we'd all left them at the hotel when we went to Halong Bay) had mysteriously disappeared when she'd gotten back. It turns out the guys at the hotel hadn't put a tag on it to say 'leave it alone' (they had with ours) and so someone had loaded it on a bus bound for Hue. A phone call or two later and it was promised to be delivered back to the hotel. We decided when it arrived, we'd get on the next bus and get the hell out of Dodge. It did, and we did. I liked Hanoi, but it was a real relief to get out in the end. Everything seems to be a hassle. Everyone just tries to score money off you. The guys at the hotel who constantly quoted us different prices on the excursions we booked. From 45 dollars to 35 depending on who they were talking to. The open bus tickets we bought whose prices did the same from 20 dollars to 28 (Laura evetually wrote a letter to their 'boss' explaining that as we'd been quoted 20 that was all we were paying). They even tried to get Kimbers to pay for the phone call they made to get her bag back, which prompted a seriously heated debate over whose fault it was. Another letter to their 'boss' sorted that one out too. The fact that when me and Mand got back from Halong Bay they told us they only had a 6 dollar room or a 10 dollar room. We asked for the 6 dollar room and were then told that it wouldn't be ready until 8pm. After much haggling we got the 10 dollar room for 8 dollars. The shopowners who charge you more one day than they did the previous day.The examples are truly endless. And the constant hassling by hawkers and vendors. None of these things is massive, but it all adds up. I for one wasn't particularly upset to leave it all behind. We jumped on our overnight bus (saves another night's accomodation - woo hoo!) and set off to the more relaxed attractions of Hue and the demilitarised zone (DMZ). Laters all xxxxxxxxxxxxxx