Well it is half 11 on Vietnamese New Year and I am in bed - how boring of me! I have been struggling to keep my eyes open in the bar for at least the last hour, 27 hours of uncomfortable travel really takes it out of you, so in the end bed was just too enticing!

Our bus journey after my entry last night wasn't particularly fun. The bus driver would drive at breakneck speeds for a while and then brake really hard if anything got in the way. That coupled with my painful coccyx made it really hard to sleep.

Just before 7am, we pulled in on a lay-by 1km from the Lao - Vietnam border. A lady on a scooter pulled up and asked for our passports and 30,000 kip departure tax. We had read that departure tax was 5,000 kip so I assume she is keeping the rest for herself. I did not feel good at all about giving my passport to a random lady on a scooter, but the other people on the bus had done it so we figured it would be okay.

At 7am we heard a 'cock-a-doodle-doo!' from a yellow plastic bag on the overhead luggage rack - there was a casual rooster in there!

The bus continued to the border and the lady did indeed return with our passports - she seemed highly unofficial so I assume something dodgy happened there. We then had to get off of the bus to go and get our passports stamped by the official and scary looking men in green uniforms. Once we had done that our bus had disappeared! I was genuinely worried that we had lost our big backpacks. Luckily another man from the bus led us a quarter of a mile up the road to where bus had gone and we got on and continued our journey in Vietnam.

Despite the constant horn beeping from the driver and the terrible music, I managed to fall asleep and was woken up by the others when we arrived at Hue at 10.40am. We were dropped off at some random roadside, where it was freezing cold (well 15 degrees) and raining - we weren't expecting that! There was one taxi there but loads of men, who were trying to take us to particular hotels so they could get commission. We kept saying no and they eventually agreed to take us to the street in the centre of town we were asking for - for $24!! That is pretty extortionate for this place but there seemed to be no other option and we were cold. The driver told us he didn't have a meter but I could see that he had covered it with his baseball cap, the cheeky b******. He tried to get the money off of us upfront but we said we wouldn't pay until we got there - he ended up having a very heated argument with the bunch of other taxi men, I assume because he had to give the money to some kind of taxi pimp on the spot. We still stood our ground and he eventually agreed to take us in his falling apart taxi. We stopped at the first hotel we saw and asked the price, and it was only $12 for a triple room, so we just went for it, as that is less that £3 each, and there is free wifi, air con and an en suite. It is called DMZ hotel which means Demilitarised Zone (the actual DMZ is 100km away apparently).

We showered and headed out - I was in jeans, bright green and pink trainers and a navy cagoule that is way too big for me, I don't have any decent cold weather clothes with me! We had some lunch and a drink for £1 each, and had a look in a sunglasses shop and a camera shop. In the sunglasses shop Vix and I bought some (fake) Rayban Wayfarers for $7 including a hard case - mine have pink frames and white arms and look super cool.

We came back to the hotel for no particular reason, then headed out for another walk. I bought an SD card reader for 180,000 dong (£5.71), and we walked over the river - there are SO many scooters here. People carry all of their shopping and their entire families on them, even newborn babies. To cross the road you just have to walk and they swerve around you - there's no way they would stop for us. It is Tet today, which is Vietnamese new year, so there are stalls everywhere selling balloons and flowers.

Back at the hotel, I tried to upload some pics onto Facebook but the internet in the hotel is too slow and it kept timing out which was very annoying.

We went to a bar next to our hotel for a Western dinner - pizza and pasta, yummy, and had a beer because it was happy hour. We were given cool red and yellow headbands to wear like Kung Fu Fighters. We had to pay 20% extra on our bill though because it is Tet.

The bar got really busy and the atmosphere was nice. We met a group of four travellers, a girl called Charlie, her boyfriend and two of his mates. Charlie is from Dover in Kent! Whilst we were talking to them I was getting more and more tired as the lack of sleep hit me, and at 11ish I gave up and headed to bed because my eyes were closing. The others stayed out and came home during the fireworks. We can still hear all the partying from our room though!

We get a bit of a lie in tomorrow which we definitely need, before another bus journey (only 3.5 hours this time!).

Night night and happy new year!

xxx