Alarms set... 6.45am for an 8 o clock bus to Hue!! Done! Except we slept through and were woken up at 8.05 by reception banging on our door to tell us our bus was waiting!!! After the quickest pack-up yet, we legged it to the bus and got on... oh dear!!!!

Nonetheless, four hours later we arrived in Hue... the imperial capital of Vietnam! After a quick nap (about three hours!!!) we had some food, each had a bath (a luxury on tour thus far!!) and returned to the land of nod!!

Next day we went off to explore the Citadel and spent a good few hours in baking hot sunshine walking around (the tan lines would later confirm this!).... after concluding that we should move on already we booked a night-bus to Hanoi, grabbed some food and packed up our stuff for a 5.30pm bus!! The mini-bus transporting us to the sleeper bus was pretty comical... I didn't have a seat, had to hold the slide-door closed, and we nearly ended the life of a scooter driver at a junction!!!

Anyway, on the bus... we thought it would be an ok journey... it wasn't!! Bloody awful doesn't quite do it justice!! The driver seemed completely oblivious to the potholes in the road, leading to me leaving my seat/bed and Tom sliding off his regularly!! 14 hours (and about 2 hours sleep) later we were awoken in rainy (and relatively cold) Hanoi!!