vietnam

Sorry that it has been so long. Being in the land of the Viet Kong meant that face book was banned so there wasn't much point of going on the internet. So where were we????? Nah Trang???

Its a nice place but like i said, its rubbish when it rains. We decided to take it easy, read, sleep and generally be lazy for 2 days, before continuing our journey to Hoian.

The night buses are an ingenious invention!! basically bunk beds on a coach at slight angles so that as many as possible can be crammed in. The only down side that i can think of is the fact that they are so narrow that you cant turn on your side and they are made from leather so that when you wake up, your face is glued to the seat and makes that horrible burning feeling all over your skin when you move. Apart from that they were brilliant and saved us a lot of money on accommodation. We met a nice American (didn't know they existed) (joke) called Joe we actually continued to bump into him in every destination and sleep in the next bed to him on 3 different occasions, this was either coincidence or we had a friendly stalker on our hands.

We rocked up in Hoian at about 05:00 am in the rain and about 1 mile out of town. The walk was long and wet with our backpacks on and we were fed up from a bumpy nights sleep. I could see that we were in a bad position to get ripped off for a room so I took control with a soggy moody Dan following me. We eventually got sorted with a niceish room in the center of town that resembled a bathroom with entire walls covered in tiles.

After a sleep we went shopping and found a bargain place to get a suit tailor made for Dan. I also fell in love with a design of a coat so they threw that in as well as 2 shirts and shoes (all tailor fitted and made) for around 60 pounds. Absolute bargain!! after a day or 2 in Hoian we realized that there really inst much more to do then shop and we could feel ourselves crumbling and making excuses as to why we need certain clothes, shoes etc so we scarpered sharpish.

We visited Hue for 6 hours on our way to Hanoi which was lovely, we saw many temples which were reminiscent of Chinese temples. Unfortunately, a lot of them had been bombed during the war so it was a contrast of feelings between beauty of architect and anxiety of destruction.

We reached Hanoi the next day with Joe and went in search of a hotel. I think we have just about got the hang of dealing with hagglers now and we approached the situation expertly. Not showing too much aggression but still being firm. saying "would you kindly piss off". Anyway we discovered that the lonely planet lies about the prices of hotels so we took the situation into our own hands and we found a top notch place with a tv and everything! for a reasonable price, (after haggling with the giggly 14 year old girl on reception.)

Hanoi is an amazing place, it is so easy to get lost so if you have enough time it is great to just wonder around all the little streets taking in the sights and the smells. One thing did shock me about Hanoi and that was, driving down the street we saw a pile of dead dogs! still fully intact, heads, tails and all. we asked the taxi driver and they were indeed being prepared to go into a stew or soup or something! we didn't see any crickets so Claire and ed, the bets off! (we had a dare that if Dan ate dog, i would have to eat cricket!) we saw all sorts of other gruesome foods on the way like brain, balls, intestine spider etc none of which looked in the least bit appertising. i think i will stick to exotic fruits.