itsbeen long since weve spoken but ill update you as best i can!

Hanoi was wonderful, we legged it up the coast to be in somewhere decent for greggys birthday, and so had nearly a week to see it. Got there on the 6th and started looking for a nice birthday hotel! Looked around a few places, some not nice, some a bit too nice or not worth the money and ended up in the most gorgeous hotel, with lovely staff, an amazing breakfast and the best room ever. (with park views AND a dressing gown in the wardrobe - oh how i miss my dressing gown!)

Got there so early from the terrible jam packed overnight bus from hue - you know its slightly overloaded when the 2nd driver whips out a hammock and has a sleep next to u in the isle! CLimbed into our massive bed and ordered room service(!!!) so full english in breakfast in bed. Greg fell asleep and i sneaked out to find him SOMETHING to unwrap tommorow. Managed to go at lunch time so kept getting chucked out of shops. In Hanoi's old town, each road makes and sells something, charcoal, bamboo ladders, hand made cards, umbrellas etc. and this is still pretty much the case but with the odd guesthouse or travellers cafe chucked in now. SHopping for gregs present i was down in incense road..which is why he ended up with a bar of soap, a can of 7up and a lego car! but he got a car and a birthday cake! On his birthday we got breakfast in bed and had a hot shower and a lie in. got up and went for a really good lunch and then went and watched water puppets. very strange show but good fun and pretty interesting. booked a nice restaurant for dinner and then went back to the hotel to get dolled up! Had an AMAZING meal with cocktails and wine and 3 courses! Real good food, greg even had a steak. WE wanted to go out after that and explore the clubs and bars of Hanoi. Found a place whihc had some flashing lights on outside, so went in to see what was going on. I got my bag searched which had our plastic bag containing our malaria pills, paracetamol etc. which got taken off me lol. Clearly thoguth i was a big drug user, the look was priceless. We were the only westerners in this club, which was pretty cool. It had live singers with a strange mixture of songs such as new york new york and rap. The diversity didnt bother us once we realised that the stage rotated and moved up and down!! its was so cool! Had a few drinks and moved onto a bar in a hotel that our receptionist had reccomended. 3 full grown adults on a rather dodgy bike zoomed off waaay out of town and got there at 1145. BEcause its a communist country and electoins were coming up curfew is strict and the club shut at 12 so we couldnt get in. We wanted to party! Stopped for a while in a casino but it was tiny and didnt have much atmosphere so back to the bike! spent ages trawling round dark dark streets passing endless clubs which the fun police had busted and closed for the night. He ended up dropping us off at a gate. Through the gate, through the pitch black we could jsut see a river...interesting choice of plac eto bring us we thoguht, but still...2 of us 1 of him! Until behind us we heard a gaggle of tourists coming towards us, so actually he may have located a club perhaps...but where we were unsure! along a plank, over the sand, along another plank, bit of a iron bridge...now over the water..still heading for darkness, lucily we had people with us! got onto a boat...still no lights, walked around the back and opened a door and suddenly an empty boat club had all its lights on and music playing for the poeple who just walked through the door..how cool!? we stayed there for a couple of hours, more drinks and more fun and then got a bike back to lusious hotel, very giggly and after a very funny birthday night!! this is the biggest blog and were off to watch a movie! Ill be back ! xxxxxxx