It was 9:30PM that our 10:20AM flight finally left Melbourne!

Some of my fellow australians behaved rather badly to the poor Jetstar girl who tried very hard to keep from rioting. Lisa said that if it had been her she would have been in tears. Most of them bailed out and got transferred to a flight leaving for Singapore via Darwin but that would have meant that we would have missed our connection to Hanoi. So, when the plane was finally given the OK to fly there was hardly anyone left to fill the seats. We landed in Singapore at 2:20 AM and it was 3:00AM by the time we checked into the airport hotel for a $320 room that we were now only going to occupy for 2.5HRS (There was a large cancellation fee otherwise we probably wouldn't have bothered!) The shower was nice and the sleep deep but short followed by a chirpy wake up call from the girl at the front desk who we seemed to have only just been speaking to! More scans, body and carry on, endless checking of passports and boarding passes and then a pleasant 3hr flight to Hanoi. The passport on arrival was reasonably OK although I must inform the chap at Travelex in Hobart that yes you do have to organise a visa before you leave Australia and yes you do have to pay for it in U.S. dollars. He didn't seem to think so. Thank god for the internet otherwise we probably would still be stuck there (or back in Aus)

The chap from the tour company turned up on time with a driver and was holding up a sign with our names on it. They took us into the usual traffic chaos common with most Asian cities, the training ground for Hobart's Asian motorists. We went out to see a temple and the old capital having some lunch along the way although I'm sure someone got the numbers wrong because there seemed to be enough food for several more people. I'd also never eaten Goat before! Off then to a river cruise on a small river amonst the rice paddys in an area of Limestone caste formations. Very beautiful and the interesting thing was that all the boats were paddled using the feet of the driver. He could quite skillfully row using only his feet including rotating the oars! The oars were tied on with rope and it was lovely to watch. The sun set while we were there and then we drove back to Hanoi which took ages and Lisa and I feel in and out of sleep along the way. She seemed to do better than me and every time someone honked a horn I would wake up and bite my tongue! (which of course happened about every 500 milliSeconds. We were dropped off the Golden Silk Hotel for a shower but there seemed to be a small c*** up with the booking by the tour company and so we just drank beer instead! Then off to the train station and onto the sleeper for the 350Km train ride to Sapa town.