12th September
A 50 minute flight to Hanoi with Carly's request to be moved to business class refused and we arrive in Vietnam. Thank god we booked a transfer to our hostel, our first experience of having our name on a board! Hanoi is crazier than crazy, it's flipping nuts! Moped drivers everywhere weaving in and our of taxi's, horns being beeped everywhere, we spent the entire journey to our hostel with our hands covering our eyes and some odd screech noises coming from Morgane! We arrived at Hanoi hostel just in time for Happy Hour and god did we need it. Free locally brewed beer delivered in water bottles, but tasted fine all the same, Cheers!
Friday 13th September
Today was an exploring day. We spent the day investigating all the local sights with Dave, a British guy we met in Laos. We had planned to go to a number of museums, however when we arrived we were told that all museums are closed on Mondays and Fridays....a good start to our Friday the 13th!! We headed towards the lake in the middle of the city and found a lovely little eatery, £1.50 later and we were full to the brim with vegetable noodle soup, yum! A relaxing evening was in order where we once again went to the hostels happy hour and then headed out for dinner and an evening beverage.
14th September
An early start was in order, which made for a happy Walton (!!) to make our way to the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum. This is a place where Ho Chi Minhs body is on display for the Vietnamese people to go and pay their respects, it is also a tourist hotspot! A bit of taxidermy and Morgane is there like a shot, even if it did mean dragging me out of bed! So we arrive at the mausoleum in the scorching heat with a moody Walton and an equally moody Dave only to find out that Ho Chi Minhs body has been moved to Russia for pickling (a technical term!). As you can imagine, I was LESS than impressed by this and Morgane swiftly made her way down the road after finding out it was closed. To be honest we were all disappointed that it was closed. Oh well, onwards to the Military museum. The museum walked us through the military history and made us wish we knew more about it, Woody we could have done with your help!
We have spent most of our time here walking around the never ending streets of the city and falling more and more in love with the hustle and bustle of it.
Our last night in Hanoi and we venture into a restaurant that is swarmed with locals. I decided to go for the local beef dish (at least I thought it was beef) and Morgane stayed safe by going for mixed noodles. The meals arrived in the Asian fashion, you get it when it's ready. Morganes meal arrived and turned out to be offal in a bed of noodles, the look on her face was priceless, she was defiantly not ready for that! (She's a veggie for those of you that don't know!)
We then headed back to the hostel through the children's festival, the constant tune being played from the festival is now embedded in our brains! This was a market festival like no other, packed to the brim with locals, kids running in and out of cars and mopeds and tourists trying to find the best route through the market...there was no best route!
15th September
Picked up at 8am this morning to being our trip to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. This began with a 3 hour mini bus trip to the dock. During the stop off mid way, Morgane led the party of myself, Dave and an Aussie family Matt and Karen and their two kids Chloe and Jordan, off the bus to the toilets. They were horrendous! One of the worst yet. After we had all finished we then walked 10 metres further to find the most glamorous toilets in Asia! Well done Morgane haha! We arrived at Halong dock and were taken to our boat, it was the little bit of luxury we needed. Beautiful rooms, a rooftop sun deck and a stunning eating area. The meals on this boat are second to none. Although it was more like the feeding of the 5000 the amount of food they kept brining out, it wouldn't stop, there was only 7 of us! In the afternoon we were taken to some breathtaking caves which were full of other tourists here to see the wonder. This was followed by a kayaking trip around Halong Bay where we were taken to a spot where we were allowed to jump into the calm waters, we didn't need telling twice! We kayaked back to our main boat just in time to catch the sunset, beautiful doesn't even do it justice.
16th September
We were woken bright and early with breakfast at 7am, again another feast! The morning consisted of a walk up the 432 steps to the top of an island to see the 360 degree view of Halong Bay, it made the early wake up well worth it, even if we were melting in the heat! After climbing back down the stairs we were overjoyed that we could take a dip in the clear waters to cool off. It was also play time where Carly, Chloe and Jordan were embarking on a water handstand competition...you can guess who won. All of this by 9am! Next we headed towards Cat Ba Island. When we arrived we were taken to pick up our bicycles....lets just say, you were lucky if you had brakes! Morganes didn't which made me giggle throughout the trip, particularly going down the endless hills, more screeching from Morgane. We cycled through the National Park taking in the beautiful scenery. We then ditched the bikes to begin our trek through the jungle...and when I say trek, I mean trek. We clambered through the never ending bushes and trees, through caves, up hills, down hills, up rock faces, down rock faces, through streams, across trees....I think you get the picture. The trek led us to another amazing view point of the island, cameras out again. We then cycled back to the boat for another dip in the water, this time we were allowed to jump of the top of the boat. Of course me and the kids went first (i felt like i was 12 again!), 20 minutes of staring over the boat and persuasion but in the end Morgane did it!! Whoop! Next came kayaking trip number two where we discovered a secluded beach, another dip in the waters to relieve us of the heat and a few games of sand noughts and crosses before we headed back to the boat. Instead of sleeping on the boat tonight, we were dropped off at our hotel on Cat Ba Island. Again a well deserved break from the hostels we have been in so far, this was a beautiful hotel! The evening consisted of dinner and a few 2 for 1 cocktails with Dave and the Aussies before we headed back for a well deserved rest, what a long but amazing day.
17th September
Today we head back to Hanoi for our 12 hour night bus to our next stop Hue. Hanoi has been an amazing but hectic city and we are ready to see somewhere new.