Hello again. I'm trying to update this thing a bit more regularly as the last blog was a bit of a marathon!

We're currently in Vientianne (capital city of Laos). We arrived here yesterday at 3.30pm (on time!!!) after a 22 hour bus ride, but more about that later.

So our last couple of days in Vietnam were spent at Halong Bay. We had booked ourselves onto a 3 day boat trip but due to bad weather, no boats were allowed into the bay, so our trip became a 2 day trip and we set off a day later than planned. We were really disappointed as we had to fill another day in Hanoi (not our favourite place), so we went back to bed for another 4 hours!! Later that day we went to the big cinema complex and watched Knight and Day. I felt like I was back at home it was amazing!

The next day we woke up, packed up our bags again and headed down to reception to see if our trip was going ahead and luckily it was. Halong Bay is about a 4 hour bus journey from Hanoi. When we arrived it was total chaos. Nobody knew where we were meant to be going or what we were doing, and this seemed to be the theme throughout the whole trip. However we finally got onto our boat and met the other people we were on the trip with - 13 girls and 3 lads. All really nice people. We then sailed into Halong Bay and it was so beautiful. A much needed change from crazy Hanoi City! We then stopped off at a cave. Apparently it had opnly been discovered about 20 years ago by a fisherman trying to escape a storm. He saw a monkey crawl into a gap in the rocks and followed it in. The cave was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen. Absolutely enormous and a geographers dream! I can't begin to describe it so I'll just hope my pictures do it justice. Next on the agenda was swimming in a lagoon. Even though we could see the entrance to the lagoon and could easily have swam to it from the boat, we were told we had to pay a fisherman to take us there by boat. After a bit of arguing we caved in and just paid up. I've never laughed so hard when it came to trying to get back into the fishermans boat after the swim. There was no ladder or rope, so there were about 10 girls all trying to haul ourselves back in with only a really skinny german guy and even smaller vietnamese man to help us. We all looked like beach wales flapping about on the boat - so funny. And the more I laughed the weaker my arms became!

After the swim we sat on the roof of the boat and watched the sunset over Halong Bay, had our tea of rice and fish and played a few card games. We were shattered so got an early night. I was just about to drift off when a massive cockroach crawled from under my pillow and up the wall next to me. We totally freaked out. We went to get some of the crew to help us and they just laughed and told us to sort it out ourselves (charming)! In the end we couldn't find it so had to try and go back to sleep. Then another cockroach appeared from under Hannah's bag. She soon took care of that one though and wacked it with my size 7 Birkenstock. It didn't stand a chance!

The next morning we did a bit of canoeing and then sailed back to dry land. Here we were told we would have to wait an hour for the bus to arrive to take us back to Hanoi. This was a bi annoying as me and hannah had our bus to Laos to catch as soon as we arrived back. 1 hour became 2 hours and everyone was getting really frustrated. Eventually our bus arrived and we knew we wouldnt make our laos bus. We phoned our hotel to let them know and she said our bus was running late so we still might make it. Anyway we arrived back in Hanoi at half 6 when the bus was scheduled to leave at half 5. We were greated by 2 random Vietnamese men on motorbikes. They asked if were going to Laos and told us to get on the back of the bikes. We did as we were told as we really didnt want to miss the bus. This bike ride was probably the most scared I have ever been in my entire life. It was rush hour in Hanoi and we were hurtling along trying to catch up with our bus. My guy was crazy and we were weaving in and out of all the other traffic, running red lights etc. So we soon lost hannah which made me nervous because I could have been going anywhere! Anyway I got dropped off next to the bus and about 5 minutes later hannah appeared. I've never been so happy and relieved to see her!

The bus journey was absolutely fine, despite it being 22 hours. It was a sleeper bus which was quite comfortable and so I got loads of sleep! Poor hannah was sandwiched between 3 vietnamese men which was ideal. I was next to a scottish couple who were really friendly.

Anyway that takes us to Vientianne. Only staying here for 1 night and off to Vang Vieng today for TUBING!!!!

Anyway speak soon everyone.

x x x