We spent another night in Bangkok airport awaiting our flight but this time spent some timeon the Khao San Road to pass the time. We watched stray cats stealing mcdonalds chips from rats whilst eating our tea in McDonalds(NICE!) then had a couple buckets before getting a taxi to the airport. Ash then slpet on a bench in the airport while Beck watched their bags.

When we got on the plane at 6am we were so knackered that Ash even slept through take off! We arrived in Hanoi at 9am and got picked up by staff from our hostel. When we got to the hostel we realised it was colder in Hanoi than we expected (just like Hong Kong!) brrrr! We really wanted to go straight to bed but the hostel owner wanted to greet us with coffee and offer us lots of advice about onward travel and trips, which was fantastic service but we were falling asleep! We decided to book our Loas visas, onward bus travel to Luang Prabang and Ha Long Bay cruise with her though as it was a good price and so effortless! Then we headed straight to bed and slept for a few hours.

We woke up starving at dinner time so headed out to eat, we found a good little local Vietnamese place where they spoke English so we ordered a 3 course meal with local beer, bia ha noi. We had beef noodle soup which Ash devoured and spring rolls which were made with vermicelli and were the best we have both ever tasted. Then came rice with stir fried chicken in sauce followed by a yogurt for pudding! It was really good and cheap for 3 pound! We tried to find somewhere to get our washing done to no avail so we headed back so Beck could wash some stuff in the sink (so glamourous!) We then fell asleep again, not dealing very well with a night spent in the airport!

Then we woke up AGAIN - still the same day folks! And ventured out for more food for tea at which point it had gone dark, Beck began to feel a bit Karl Pilkington about the place as the traffic was mental and generally a bit over whelming! The weather was damp but we sat at a street vendor on little stools and ash had some more beef noodle soup. On the walk back a strange man appeared to want to steal Becks flip flops and a man was walking around the streets with a speaker and a microphone singing, Beck felt it was an odd place so we seeked shelter from this strange city in the Hanoi Backpackers hostel bar and sighed in relief at the sight of westerners.

The next day we got up and walked around Hanoi, bought some cool things from markets, Ash bought fake boxers, Bec bought some shoes and bracelets. We walked down to the lake and had a KFC which was rank and then had a drink in a little place on the 5th floor of a building overlooking the lake and traffic below. Beck began to warm to the city and the crazy traffic, she felt it was grey and dirty but it definately had character, Ash decided he loved it from the first minute as it was so different to anywhere we have been before. We tasted some more Vietnamese beers and decided to try durian, we knew the smelly fruit had a bad reputation so we thought durian flavoured ice cream was a good idea. WRONG! It was horrible, it smelled like sulphur and tasted like cheese, Beck handled quite a bit of it but Ash could not stomach it.

That night we headed to the hostel next door to join a trip to the Snake Village. We got on the mini bus with fellow travellers, some English guys who had been living in China teaching English for 2 years, two old ex US army guys who has been in the Vietnam war, and some aussies(they are everywhere!) We drove into a dodgy and grimy looking part of the city and pulled up at someones house, a little Vietnamese guy greeted us and showed us the snakes we were going to eat and also got out a cobra and started teasing it and yes, it still had venom.

We were led to a bamboo dining room which was open air but covered and we sat on the floor at low tables. We were given free beers and asked who wanted to eat a snakes heart? The first guy got up and The guy got the snake out of a bag, broke its neck and gestured for the guy to slice open its body with a knife, then he pulled out the still beating heart and told the guy to rip it out with his teeth. Yummy! Then he drained the blood of the snake into a glass and told the guy to drink it after he finally swallowed the heart. Ash was so excited for his turn, although we did not expect it to be so extreme as we had heard other people say that they put the heart into a shot glass with vodka and you swallow it that way, but here was a tad more carnivourous! Then after everyone had ripped their hearts out of their snakes (Beck did not do it!) they took the snakes away to cook them up into 8 different courses.

With each new course that came out we had to take a shot of rice moonshine which was a bit like vodka. The first two shots were one snakes blood, one snakes bile from the stomach. The blood was really off putting but the bile left a kind of slime in Becks mouth, but there was no retching which was extremely shocking! The food which came out was so good, so well cooked with beautiful herbs and spices, we ate snake bones, snake balls, snake penis, ribs, general meat and skin. It was all pretty tasty to be honest, then we went back to the hostel to drink more beer and chat with general folk. They closed the bar in the hostel at 12 which surprized us, some of the others were heading on to a late night club but we decided street food and bed were preferable. We bought a fried egg bagutte off a street vendour and this began our love affair with bagguettes, Vietnam used to be a french colony so the baguettes have stuck around and are perfectly baked!

The next day we got picked up to go on our trip to Ha long bay. It was a full bus, but there was no other backpackers, most people were older and on holiday. We stopped a standard rest stop which was built for coach tours and sold all souvenirs to make money from holiday makers - we did not buy any of the tat on offer. We got on a smaller boat to be transferred to the big boat we were gonna sleep on which was really fun and we got our first glimpse of the bay. The big boat was really pretty and had a lovely dining/living room area where we were handed our room keys. Our room had a big comfy double bed, a very posh bathroom with glass rain shower and a safe, which was good, we had not had one before but it felt good to know your passport was safe! We had lunch on board which was lots of different dishes shared between the table, rice, chips, prawns, squid, chicken, fish, tofu, everything you can think of, and it was all Vietnamese. We got a chance to have a look around on the top deck which had sun loungers - not necessary, it was freezing! and a great view of the huge karsts all around us.

We then went on a little boat made of bamboo around the floating village, which was great and a real sight! Houses being kept afloat by plastic drums, a bank, a shop, a school, all floating on the water. It was really interesting to see the way people live on the water and the scenery was really beautiful. Then we got back onto our big boat and we sat on the top deck drinking beer and looking around at the amazing landscape around us. We were absolutely freezing especially as it got dark but we thought the scenery was worth it! When we moored up for the night in a designated area, lots of ladies on the bamboo boats came around all the sleeping boats with their tiny boast filled to the brim with pringles, sweets, beer and wine, which was a great idea. One lady hung around for a while shouting 'Herro misser you wan buy sumsing' over and over which was pretty entertaining but we were pretty impressed with these tiny ladies rowing the boats all around about 20+ boats.

Before dinner we had a cookery class where we all made our own vermicelli rice spring rolls Vietnamese style and guess what? Ash was class pet again with the chef proclaiming Ashs spring roll was perfect! They were really tasty though and we would love to get chance to make them or try them again at home. Then we ate dinner which was lovely lots of fresh veg, meat, rice and fruit for pudding. We tried all of it even tofu which looked minging but tasted lovely. We spent some time on the top deck again drinking beer and looking around, one boat next to us was full of Chinese tourists soing kareoke and one was full of backpackers getting hammered, no doubt mostly Aussies! Then we sat in the lounge and read a bit before going to bed. We did not feel rocked on the boat one bit the water was really still which was a surprize.

The next day we got up early so not to miss breakfast and whilst getting ready Becky saw a man looking through the frosted glass window whilst she was showering and thought it was Ash playing a joke, so she shouted him and he opened the door only to see the man scarper off down the other side of the boat, he saw it was a Vietnamese guy who worked on the boat but couldnt tell which one. For the rest of the day Beck gave evil eyes to every little creep who worked on the boat, gross!!! Breakfast was omlettes, toast, jam, butter, ham and fruit with coffee and tea.

They then took us to some caves, which were in one of the karsts, and were pretty impressive, the cieling had a wave pattern formed by the sea and the walkwaythrough the cave led to a fantastic viewpoint. THen we went back to the boat and had lunch which was the same as tea and dinner from the day before and then we were unloaded to shore for our bus trip back to Hanoi.

Whilst on the bus we were worried we were not going to get there in time for our pick up for our overnight bus that was to take us over the border to Luang Prabang, Loas. It was a tight journey but we got there just on time with 5 mins to spare, the guy who picked us up was on a motorbike and he led us down numerous streets to meet the coach, it was bloody hard work trying to keep up with him, and not much fun which sent Beck into a bad mood! Then we were messed about some more told to get off the coach and to follow the bloke on the motorbike again, he led us down a motorway with huge holes by the side of the road in the dark, deathtrap! We followed him on foot while he rode his motorbike to where the overnight coach would meet us. We were then left standing by the side of the road in the pitch black for some time, which felt decidely dodgy but luckily we were with two guys, one fellow brit, one Dutch and we made a joke about how we felt we were being led to be mugged/kidnapped/murdered. The bus finally did show up and Beck was then in a really bad mood as it looked nothing like the picture of the coach we booked, had no toilet on board and it kept stopping to pick up smelly Vietnamese people and load matresses, scaffolding, speakers and all sorts of crap on to the roof. Ash was really enjoying it and chatting to the other two guys who also said they were enjoying Vietnam also, so she sat with her book to sulk for the night. We stopped once for a toilet stop between 8pm and the next day, which was utterly gross and the worst toilet we had ever seen in our lives, s***, piss and sick splattered all over the floor, walls and toilet, there was a shop to buy sandwiches but we thouhgt best not to, we stood outside to stretch our legs a bit and witnessed a young woman eating fruit and spitting the skin all over herself, at which point Beck lightened up and saw the funny side of it all.

We slept well on the bus as the seats fold down into a bed, the morning scenery was fantastic, we were winding up the hills to the Loas border and we were told to get off at 7am but not shown where the border office actually was. The border seemed to be on top of a mountain and it was foggy, rainy, very muddy and freezing cold. We were eventually pointed in the right direction by the driver who spoke perfectly good English but really could not be arsed with us, lovely. We then sat there for ages getting our passports checked and watching a Vietnamese woman let her toddler eat cigarette buts off the floor.

We finally got through with our exit stamps and started the slow walk across the no mans land to the Loas entry point office. The no mans land was like a landslide of slimy mud, very foggy, had a million chickens running around and was quite funny to tackle in flip flops!

Getting our visas stamped was easy in the Loas office and we got back on the coach which was waiting for us, hurrah! We had friends who got dumped at the border. We werethen glad of our idea to pur biscuits, crisps and other crap food into our backpacks as the driver clearly had no plans to drop us anywhere for food. But, alas we were in Loas and the journey was scary, windey, and most of the time on a cliff edge but the scenery all the way to Luang Prabang was stunning, inspriring and gob smackingly beautiful!