Hey there,

Well after another slightly uncomforatble 12 hour bus journey (we should be getting used to these by now) we arrived in Hanoi the capital. We were here to put the finishing touch on our whistle stop two week tour of Vietnam. We got here at 5.30 in the moprning already being greeted by the barmy locals all up exkeesizing. We picked up a taxi into the guesthouse area... well what we thought was the guesthouse area infact all the guesthouses were shut and all that that was left was the bloody expensive ones, and in expensive i mean six quid... how much of a rip off is that. Going past the point, on the way to the guesthouse we went past the main lake in the city, remember that it is now 5.30 in the morning and there must be at least one thousand people doing laps round this lake, the bloody god dam fools. The initial search for a room included this young lad taking me on a motorbike to a room which he was just about to kick his dad out the room to make way for us untill i just finally ran out of patience and walked out.

Well after the hotel fiasco we finally got a bit of shut in a nice AC room which is a treat for us. We got up and went for rush rush tour of vietnam which included sending our lovley suits home, and while we were there we watched some girl send a big bag of dried fish to Oz uuurrggh they stunk. Come to think of it mum did my suit smell a bit fishy? and do you think someone is missing there home food? The rest of the day seen us place our faith in the hands of lonley planet once more so we tried to do a little walking tour. This wasn't to bad actually well we couldn't be botherd walking the first bit so we got a moto taxi to the temple of litrature which is a old school made by the emporer which housed all the intelectuals the grounds are really quite nice but there was no time to dilly dally we walk round took a few picks and off we popped walking her was a task as it has a similar hot humid smog as Bangkok.

We took in the rest of the old town which involved shops shops shops a old spooky looking Notre Dam Cathedral shops shops and more shops some really cheap beers at a street cafe, by this time it was now rush hour and this just means madness and death defying street crossings in true Vietnam stylee. The evening was followed by a really nice meal (God i am gonna miss Vietnamese food) a few more cheap beers.

As we didnt manage to book ourselves onm the early flight out of Hanoi we cheekilym managed to wangle another morning out of the city. So this meant two things seen as it was my last morning i was going to have chicken noodle soup for breakfast like the locals, and also we were going to see Ho Chi Mnh's enbalmed body at the memorial palace thingy. the first bit was succsesful and the soup was lovley, but the second failed miserably we turned up at the memorial at 10.30 only to be told it was just shutting...gutted. Well that was that so we just looked around the museum for a while and then headed off to the airport for our flight to Bangkok.

Woo Hoo bring on the slands baby!