So after Kat's birthday we decided to head south as there was a typhoon in the Phillippines that was heading towards the north of Vietnam. Don't think it would have been that dangerous for us inland but we were eager to avoid anymore bad weather.

We timed it perfectly as we were one day ahead of the storm and went on the first day that we were able to travel south through the floods. If you haven't seen the news practically the whole of central Vietnam is flooded completely. The bus companies don't tell you if its too flooded they just go and hope for the best and then if its too flooded you get stranded. We were lucky with our timing but it was actually quite an experience driving through thigh deep water in a sleeper bus in the middle of the night. Its probably best we saw it in the dark because if we'd have seen the full extent of what we were driving through it would probably have been pretty sketchy. Before we drove through it they had to take all of our luggage out of the undercarriage thing so it didn't get wet. My sleeper bed was in the middle of the isle and I was completely rammed in by stacks of three rucksack high piles on all sides. Cosy! Lucky I don't get clostrophobic! It took us three extra hours because they had to drive the long way into the mountains to make it through. We saw loads of mudslides aswell. The scenery in Vietnam is wicked.

Well we made it to Hue in the end anyway, sad to say goodbye to our Dutch friends that we met in Halong Bay but we'll probably see them again. (Look up Simon Blower's photo's on facebook to see Dutch people and backflips off the boat). The dutch people were really cool even if they were suffering from a nasty case of (in their own words) spray poop. Hue was fairly nice, not that much going on but we took a nice boat ride and saw a pagoda and wandered around the old city. Kat did manage to get locked in a toilet, much to the amusement of a gang of young Vietnamese girls, who just giggled through the hole in the toilet door for about 15 minutes without helping and in the end she had to be rescued.

We arrived in Hoi An today and think we might stay here a while. Its quite small and there are lots of beaches in cycling distance and the food is amazing. Probably haven't said much about the food in Vietnam but it is delicious. Vietnamese curry = WINNER.