The day after rock climbing we did the activity Vang Vieng is reknowned for, tubing. The idea is you collect a tractor tyre inner tube, hop on a Tuk Tuk and go 3km upstream where you jump in the river and float down. In the rainy season it should take about an hour, however it takes up the whole afternoon as there are many bars conveniently located on the banks. We did this tubing with Fiona, Lorna, Nicky, Vicky and Phil and John, Fi and Lornas friends from back home who joined us for rock climbing as well but I forgot to mention. We stopped at the first bar, about 30m from the start and had our first drink. At each bar, there are people either in the water or on the banks who help you get to the bar, you either grab onto large sticks that are held out to you, or you are trown a rubber ring attached to a rope and are pulled in. It is more than just drinking at the bars, many of the bars have large rope swings hanging from trees etc which drop you into the river where you swim back to the bank or allow yourself to be collected in a rubber ring attached to a rope thrown by a 10 year old boy with pin point accuracy. People who had done a lot of tubing were doing ariel acrobatics on the swing but most people swung a few times and jumped off. And that was my plan until I actually got on the swing, I just decided to let go at the peak of the swing, it was a lot higher than I anticipated but was a lot of fun. A thing Laos is known for is Lao Lao, a locally brewed wine or whiskey brewed by fermenting rice, it can be very strong. It is also very cheap, hence why while tubing you could not spend any more than what it cost to hire the ring as the bars just give it out for free, even if you didn't buy any drinks. It could be a very bad idea to just drink Lao Lao though so a few shots during the day was usually enough for most people. We carried on to numerous bars, notably a mud bar where if you were clean, would wouldn't be for much longer as someone was bound to push you into one of the mud pools! We managed 4 bars before it started to get dark. Considering there are over 10 bars, we didn't do too well. When we set off it was still light, however while floating down the river with about 11 people holding onto each other via feet, hands, hair or whatever else we could grab on to, it got dark very quickly and we ended up floating down the river in pitch black which was an experience, seeing as we had no idea where to get out of the water and if you miss the last bar and keep floating you will end up in Vientiene, about 200km from Vang Vieng. Luckily we were pulled out of the water by a load of kids, obviously used to Westerners floating down the river, and of course they wanted money. We gave them a little and headed back.

The next day was just a lazy day where we ate and watched Friends, and booked our bus for the next day. We had considered flying from Vientiene to Hanoi due to the stories we had heard, but all the travel agents offered the journey so we thought it couldn't be too bad. We booked our bus with Fi and Lorna (Phil and John were going to go the day after us, and Nicky and Vicky were going to fly). One bus would take us to Vientiene, then we would have an hour before catching the 24 hour bus to Hanoi. 28 hours in a space of 29. We had decided against spending any time in Vientiene as we had heard that there wasn't much to do there apart from temples and we had seen enough of them at the time.

The first leg of the bus was fine, only 4 hours. The next bit we weren't looking forward to, it was a local bus, which supposedly had AC, but we didn't know what to believe as to them, air-con is just some measly fans and open windows. We left at 7pm. After about 2 hours we stopped for dinner, then carried on until 2am. We thought it was just a short stop so people got out to go to the toilet, have cigs and get some fresh air. It turned out to be 4 ½ hours of hell. Soon after arriving, they herded us back onto the bus, closed the door, and left us until 6.30am. Considering the intermittent air-con only worked when the engine was on (it was proper air-con but only worked for about 20 minutes every hour), it got extremely hot. Added to by the fact that every seat was full, and there were about 10 people and their luggage crammed into the narrow aisle which was fine when you were moving but not so great when you want to get out and have to clamber over people and you don't know how to say sorry! Lorna and Fi had been given Valium at the pharmacy when they had asked for sleeping pills so they were out most of the time, and Wil managed to get some sleep. I on the other hand found it too hot and just sat there the whole time sweating non-stop, disgusting I know, but I was drenched. We were right at the back too which was a lot hotter than the front as the engine is at the back. That was by far the worst bit of a relatively uneventful and 'not-as-bad-as-I-thought' journey. We crossed the border soon after setting off (it didn't open until about 7am, hence why we stopped for so long), and I managed to get some sleep between then and when we arrived in Hanoi at about 6.30pm.

We found somewhere to stay and the next day we had a walk around Hanoi, well some of it anyway. We walked around the lake and went to the Military History Museum which I found very interesting, they had some large exhibits in the compound too, such as planes, tanks etc.

The following day we booked our trip to Halong Bay. It happened to be that everyone wanted to do similar trips so the 8 of us decided to go together. We booked a 3 day, 2 night tour, and chose the deluxe package, it was quite a bit of money but still worked out at just under our daily budget and we wanted to treat ourselves. We started early and had a 3 hour minibus to the coast, where we got on our boat and put our stuff in our room. It certainly was a deluxe boat, there were 7 twin/double rooms on the bottom deck, a resturant area and sitting room area with a TV and a DVD player on the deck above, and on the top deck was an open area with lots of deck chairs for relaxing and sunbathing. It had recently been renovated. On our boat there was the 8 of us doing 3 days, 4 people doing a 1 day tour, 1 girl doing a 2 day tour and another person doing 3 days like us, so there were 10 people staying on board the boat for the night. We went kayaking and swimming in the afternoon. The evening was spent doing karaoke and clilling on the top deck. One thing is for sure, Will can't sing! The next day we arrived on Cat Ba island, the biggest island in Halong Bay. In the morning the guys did a trek up a mountain which was hot, sweaty and muddy work, but worth the hard work for the view from the tower at the top. The girls on the other hand did cycling around the area. After a couple of hours we headed to the hotel in the main town on the island. Our hotel was 3 stars and our room was really nice, comfortable beds, hot shower and cable TV, however some of the other rooms were not so nice which was a shame. In the afternoon we went kayaking off a boat to Monkey Island where we saw some monkeys, which you often don't, and had a swim before kayaking back to the port. After dinner we spent a couple of hours in the spa's cold tubs, steam rooms and sauna while sipping on wine. A relaxing end to the day. The next morning we got back on our boat and headed back towards the mainland where we got the minibus back to Hanoi. We had had a sleeper bus booked from before we left for Hanoi but it now was fully booked so we attempted to get a train in the evening but the train was fully booked for the next few days, as were flights. We decided to book a bus to Hue for the following evening and had a lazyish day in Hanoi before leaving. In the morning I went to see Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum. The whole area is cordoned off and you have to go through metal detectors before you queue up until the guards dressed in pristine white uniforms guide you through to a room lined with more guards where you walk round and out again in less than a minute. It was very weird. You can't take pictures but he has been embalmed and he is just lying there, he looks like a puppet, not a real person. For 2 months every year he is closed to the public to undergo maintenance! One thing we noticed about Hanoi was that the majority of people were very rude, of course there were exceptions, but it was a bit of a shock coming from Laos where everyone is really friendly. We left for Hue and arrived the next morning.