Woke up for breakfast again (impressive, no?) and then spent a while sorting accommodation for Hanoi. Shortly after this we remembered that we actually hadn't booked transport yet! This proved to be far more difficult than anticipated! Trains for the next 5 days were fully booked and flights were too expensive. The bus for tomorrow was also fully booked and the next few days but fortunately another bus company had 4 seats spare for the day after tomorrow - we soon learnt that our definition of seat was somewhat different to theirs...

Anyway, after a stressful admin-filled morning we decided the only option was to relieve stress with an afternoon of surfing! We jumped on our motorbikes and drove around 30minutes to da nang, china beach - vietnams top surfing beach! Nic and Miranda made a new friend on the motorway at 60kph when a crazed old lady decided that this was the perfect moment to engage in a casual conversation about their holiday plans! Their logical response was to scream loudly and accelerate off.

We eventually made it to china beach where we had lunch in the ocean club. This sounds a lot nicer than it actually was! It was very wet and we made to order before we'd seen a menu or even a seat! The food was relatively nice however and cheap so with full bellies we set off for "Tams Pub" - a surf shack in the middle of nowhere. Despite the rest of the groups "well-founded" doubt Josh's directions were INCREDIBLE and he took them to the back alley shop in no time! Some would say it was like finding a needle in a hay stack but he managed! Unfortunately the only two boards were available were a 5ft short-board and a 9ft tank! We took both - probably a mistake!

This is because, despite being the low season for surfing, an offshore storm had caused big waves (around 6foot) but they were slow rolling so the short-board couldn't even catch a waterfall if it tried! The longboard however was successful and awesomely pink and all 3 boys caught good waves to shore. Josh spotted an alligator from the comfort of the shallow waves apparently in between him and the others, near to them. Taking it in turns to paddle on the board they engaged in a 20minute struggle against the waves to travel the 100m to shore only to discover the alligator was a actually a coconut. In the mean time, miranda (who had been feeling quite ill and so chilled on the beach) had become a local celebrity as hundreds of Vietnamese people took their friends over to her for a photo shoot! We were unsure whether they had mistaken her for angelina jolie but either way they loved it and so did she! Soldiers used to come here as r&r during the war but it clear that westerners were not often seen on the beach as the 5 minutes Josh spent on the each he was asked to pose too!

Surfing well past the hour when the sleepy sun said it's adieu, it's newly found laiisez-faire attitude inspired the fatigued boys to rendez-vous at the beach. Before bisou-ing the tranquil, unspoilt beach au revoir Miranda took a quick piss behind a deck chair. Standard Miranda. After dropping the surf boards back we returned to the hotel past 6283920492 5* hotels and got showered and ready for dinner.

The showers turned out to be rather unnecessary because dinner was noodles on a mat on the beach! SO CULTURAL! Nic LOVED IT! Lit by lanterns and candle light, Nic entertained the group with his frustration of the others' cultural ways as he impersonated Chris and Josh ordering noodles because all he wanted was a burger. This culminated in him throwing noodles on his face! Miranda was in generally giggly mood the entire meal! Towards the end of our dinner we were joined by our security guard who proceeded in dancing and singing to us! This started relatively pleasantly and Nic got up to join in the dance but the man quickly turned creepy when the lyrics of the song revealed he knew where we were staying! We made a very quick getaway back to the safety of our room!! We left our bikes outside crazy bike ladies house AS REQUESTED BY HER.....