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Hello everyone, hope you're all well!
A little catch up from Dave on whats been happening.
After we pass the Chinese border on 7th August we jump into a bus and head for Hanoi (Vietnam). We cross the red river into the northern capital and the place looks crazy with motorbikes everywhere carting people around. We stay at the Blue Sky guesthouse, a really nice room with our first ever bath which I gladly use (first one in 3mths). Unfortunately its built for Vietnamese sizes, at only 5ft long even my short arse can't fully recline!
We're MILLIONAIRES, I drew 2mil from the ATM and we hit the town hard with dinner and beers - turns out its only 65 pounds but it felt nice.
We stay in Hanoi for a couple of days and hire a little honda wave to putt us about. Looked around the Old Quarter, the botanical gardens, with nothing botanical but a lake and some trees (Kew puts it to shame!). Have a bite to eat on a river boat and take a look around the French quarter, ahh the smell of fresh baguettes!
At night we decided to go for a drink at 'Funky Monkey'. As we're trying to find this place that didn't seem to exist we bump into an American called Aaron also looking for it and spend the night with him bar hopping around Hanoi on the back of "taxi" motorbikes - 3 of us packed on a bike darting from polite pub to funky monkey (yes we finally found it) to pinky moons to finnegans where we end up sitting at the bar with HUGE sombraros on our barnets stumming the 1 string guitar at 4am. It was our first night out on the razz since we'd been travelling and a welcome change.
The next morning up at 8 (heads a little rough) we visit 'The Ho' (Ho Chi Minh) at his mosoleum. This guy was, is truly worshiped. So many security checks to go through, one to put your bag in, next a metal detector, then another person takes your camera as these aren't aloud in the Hos presences. As we're walking up the stairs I couldn't belive the song they had playing over the tannoi, Celine Dions 'my heart will go on'. I thought we're going to get to the top of the stairs look around the corner and see a ships bow with the Ho in a Leonardo Decaprio stance and the slogan 'I'm the king of the world' displayed. Sadly this was not the case, he was behind a glass box in a black suit, he looked like a Madame Tussauds wax work. I don't know why but the gards inside kept grabbing my arm and pulling me along like I was some threat to the Ho, well its not like he could defend himself!
11th Aug was our last day in Hanoi our train departs at 11pm for Hue. We spend the day pottering around. Bumped into Aaron in the afternoon and went for some nibbles and a drink. He told us about the water puppet show he'd seen the night before so we booked some tickets. Puppet show was cool apart from the 9ft man infront of me (always seems to happen to me) and his 'ants in her pants' daughter who would not stop figgetting (we moved to a better spot later). The puppets of people, water and fire breathing dragons, boats and phoenix all danced majestically on a stage of water with music performed by a vietnamese group using traditional instruments.
Our train was cancelled due to bad weather so we spent another night in Hanoi and attempt to book a bus the next day. 3 taxi rides later (after returning to collect out bags) we're finally booked on the 11.30 to Thah Hoa about 1/3 along to where we want to be in Hue. After being dropped off in Thah Hoa we try to book the next bus to Vinh but that bus doesn't depart from the station we were in. We are told to walk 1km up the road...2ks later and no sign of a bus station. We ask a local and he says the bus comes past here, what he failed to say was it doesn't stop. So there we are running along side (in what felt like super slow motion) with 20kg+ back packs on trying to pull ourselves up on to the cramped bus. We stop in Vinh for 1 night and meet some other westies and had dinner together - a delicious soup dish of noodles, spices (lemon grass, corriander and chilli) chicken and eels. It was the first vietnamese dish we'd had and the first time i'd tried eels.
Up early to catch the 1 bus-a-day to Hue which was fully booked. A man informs us a special 'VIP' bus leaves about 1pm at an extortionate (by the standards we'd been paying) amount of 180k. It should be around 70K but he saw a oportunity to make some extra money and we needed to move on so we book ourselves on it, dump our bags in the boot and take a look around town followed by a few very tasty 'Bia Hoi' beers at only 6 pence each. Bia Hoi is a fresh beer that has no chemicals (so no nasty head in the morning) and a limited shelf-life of around 24hrs. We come back to the bus station just before departure to find 1 of our bags had been stolen (from a supposedly locked boot) which contained a present for someone back home. After talking with the driver as compensation we get a free ride on the bus.
Sorry have to go will finish this blog later guys!
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