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Hanoi is party central, we've had a great few weeks meeting people in the brilliant Hanoi Backpackers Hostel.
Various celebrations have included watching the Rugby 6 Nations and seeing England win, yay! Although the Eng v Ireland game was played terribly by ourselves. Then we had St Patricks Day, the day of the year when no matter where you come from or who you are it's fully acceptable and embraced by all to dress in green, drink Guinness, be rowdy as hell and start the day with a shot of Jamiesons in your coffee at 9am :)
Then of course, we had Addisons 26th birthday! We had a great day with food and presents including a much appreciated and devoured meat pie as a cake replacement....everyone knows Adds well here. Although we were all ill we still managed to gather a good set of people and party the night away, even if it did end in a broken in half locker door oops! The following night we had a beautiful double room with plasma tv as his birthday present which was a great escape from dorm life for an evening.
Anyway it's not ALL been about partying, we squeezed in a few circuits of the central lake which is home to a humongous and very old turtle, we visited the War Museum and went up the famous tower and admired the view of the city. A guy who works in the hostel directed us to a 'secret' cafe which has no visible entrance but once inside provides a great view over the lake from four storeys high, here we indulged in a local delicacy, egg milk coffee.....not actually that nice surprisingly!!!!!!
We spent an evening at Snake Village, we left at 7pm and were driven as a group of 20 out to a village and went to a restaurant type place set on a circuit of bamboo bridges over a swamp. You begin with cutting open a snake whilst your partner bites out and swallows the still beating heart......I did neither, Adds did the biting. This was followed by a shot of blood and a shot of bile (mandatory for all), and a seven course snake meal. First up was fried balls of snake meat with chili and lemongrass, then snake meat spring rolls, fried snake skin, ribs, rice cooked in snake fat, crushed snake bones and intestine pieces mmmmmmm each course is dunk with a shot of homemade rice wine (being homemade it's 'between' 40% and 60% proof). It was a great night and we didn't get back until 10.30pm, when we did , let's say we were pretty wasted. Great experience though, if a little mean!
Last weekend we were picked up at 8am for our weekend at Halong Bay a bay made up of thousands of islands. There was a four hour transfer from Hanoi then we made our way out to the beautiful wooden junk boat (see above). We we shown to our unexpected double private en suite cabin and fed some brilliant food. Adds also joined a few brave people in jumping off the boat into the FREEZING cold water! After lunch we jumped on some double kayaks and paddle for about 45 minutes to some incredible caves where we squeezed through some incredibly small gaps to reach a stunning secret pool in the middle of one of the limestone outcrops. Our guide then took us further in the caves to a stiflingly hot cavern with glittering stallagtites and stallagmites (apologies for spelling there). Once back on the boat we had the obligatory party on board whcih lasted until about 4am, as you can imagine being woken at 7am was in no way appreciated. The following hungover morning was spent sailing round Halong Bay, being fed and making our way back to the hostel in Hanoi. All in all a great trip despite the crappy weather.
The other day me and Adds went to visit the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, yup we got up really early to go and see an embalmed dead body. Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese revolutionary leader who was prime minister and president of North Vietnam. He formed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and led the Viet cong during the Vietnam War until his death. It was a haunting experience as we were led slowly through the darkened mausoleum incomplete silence surrounded by soldiers holding guns complete with bayonettes....scary. After this we visited the temple of literature, this was built to celebrate the founding of Vietnams first university in 1070 (or something close to that) and is made up of a set of Chinese pagoda type things and houses eighty odd huge stone tablets with old ancient scriptures carved into them. On our way to the train station to book our tickets to the Chinese border we managed to get lost in a warren of tiny backstreets where all the locals were carrying on as normal, so what should have taken ten minutes took about an hour....incredible! We'd had enough tourist stuff after that so we treated ourselves to some sushi and a cinema trip followed by a long walk home round the central lake.
We've been here quite a while now because as most of you already know I managed to fracture a rib on a night out doing a three man shoulder pile up. So, basically, I feel like I've been it by a bus and we've had to cancel our Sapa trekking after doctors orders which is gutting. Hopefully I'll be ok by the time we reach Tiger Leaping Gorge so we can trek that, fingers crossed.
They have a great crossroads called Bia Hoi Corner, on each corner there is a street 'bar' where you sit with other backpackers and some locals on tiny playschool size plastic chairs and order glasses of Bia Hoi (fresh beer) from either a little old lady or an eight year old girl. Each beer costs between 3,000 and 5,000 Vietnamese dong (0.8 to 0.15p) great stuff!
Everyone has left now, Cat and Sam left for China en route to Hong Kong to begin their route home via the Transiberian Express, Linzi and Darren are trekking in Borneo, Ian is tanning in the Philippines and everyone else has gone off somewhere random. Sam's big brother Alex and his girlfriend Steph begin their backpacking trip last week in Hanoi so we got to spend some time with them and we're planning to meet them next month in Laos.
So it's Sunday, Mothers Day, happy mothers day to Momma Morton, Momma Devlin, grandma, Sara and the rest of you mums. We have our train booked for 10pm tonight in a soft sleepr cabin to Lao Cai that should take around ten hours then we'll cross the Chinese border and catch a bus to the Yuanyang Rice Terraces, our first stop in China so we are MEGA excited!
Oh, also happpy birthday to my little bro for next Sunday!
Love you guys xxxxxxxx
- comments
Dad Well, having chatted to you for ages this morning and webcammed you around the new decor at home I have little to add. But that has never stopped me... It was lovely to hear you. Glad you're picking up, long may it continue. By now you'll be on the train to China I imagine (unless your taxi couldn't find the station). Hope you both have an amazing time there. China! Wow! I hope the rest of your adventures flow seamlessly, painlessly and excitingly. What a story you will have to tell, I must get some Strepsils in. Thanks for calling, Grandma loved talking to you, she so can't wait to damage your rib further when she sees you. Take care, enjoy. Love xXx