Am soooo annoyed as i just wrote a really long entry about EVERYTHING that has happened in Vietnam and i just managed to delete it. GRRRRR. so i'm not going to write it again because it took an hour and i'm soooo annoyed now and frustrated. So you're going to have to wait until i get back to find out about vietnam - basically saw some tunnels, got some clothes made, visited a hill tribe, hurt my ankle can't carry bag, went on a boat trip in halong bay.

Now we're heading back to bangkok tonight to start thailand properly and i can't wait! so will keep you updated with all our adventures there, better than i have been with vietnam!

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 Ok so i'm sorry about my rubbish Vietnam update, so now that i've got a bit of time i thought i'd update you all on what i've been doing (sorry it's a couple of weeks late!!)

 We started off in Ho Chi Minh City, which is the second largest city in vietnam.  The first day there we visited Cholon market - which can only be described as a chinese ghetto.  The place where we were staying in HCMC was really nice and quite western - with nice AC shops and huge billboards and CLEAN sidestreets.  We also visited teh bolanical gardens and a zoo (by accident) - but were feeling very cultural!  The second day we visited the Cu Chi tunnels - which are these extensive underground tunnels that the vietnamese used to fight the americans during the war.  They are some hideous contraptions in them (some twisted man must have come up with those) and we got a chance to go into the tunnels.  They were so claustrophobic though and we had to crawl around on our knees in the blind dark - was not something i wish to experience EVER again!!!!

After HCMC we went to Da Lat because there were some waterfalls etc that we wanted to see but when we got there we discovered they weren't worth seeing because they had all dried up!  We were offered a mushroom farm and a tea plantation instead but didn't go.  Instead we jumped on the bus the following morning (Da Lat wasn't even a very nice town -  it was stuck in the 50s and not worth seeing.  Did pick up some rice vodka in the market though - which turned out to be lethal!)

The next day we went to Nha Trang - where we spent a couple of days sunbathing on the ebach and lashing.  The rice vodka went down a treat - but had aweful hangovers the next day!  So we spent a couple of days just chilling out there.  We did a boat trip to some of the islands (which would have been fun if we weren't hungover - again!) we missed the bus so held the whole boat up as we had to make our own way there on mopeds!  The captain of the boat was crazy, jumping into the water with a tray of floating drinks and we were all floating and splashing around in rubber rings!

 After Nha Trang we carried on further North to Hoi An - where we spent 3 days getting clothes made (expect a delivery of winter coats, dresses, tops and skirts in 3-4months mum as shipped everything back by sea!).  It was a major mission getting all our clothes made and tailored exactly - but it was so much fun.  We made friends with an American girl called Ali who went around with us and thought we were crazy to get so many random things made - needless to say she soon caught the bug and was getting as much stuff as us!

From Hoi An we carried up further North on a 23 hr coach ride (urgh!) though stopped for a couple of hours in Hue which helped to break the journey up.  We spent a day in Hanoi walking around the town and watched a water puppet show (they were so sweet - chloe brought a dragon but i decided that they scared me too much to be carrying a puppet around in my bag for the next couple of months).  The next day we caught a train to Sa Pa up in the north where we'd booked a trekking trip.  Unfortunately chloe got food poisoning on the overnight train up there - and though she trekked for a bit on the second day, it was bascially me and this middleaged German Giant with the thickest glasses i've ever seen (yes even thicker than your glasses bex!).

The second night we stayed in a homestay up in the mountains.  It was quite good fun - though the guide did try to make me drink rice vodka (after nha trang i couldn't do it) but finally relented and forced the german guy to drink some.  Turns out they're all massive drinkers and for such small people they can hold their liquor!  The final day of trekking turned out to be the worst as the guide decided to go off the track and take us all the muddy sledges of the rice fields and the vertical drops!  I wasn't impressed and couldn't climb up so the guide dragged me up one side of the mountain and then practically pushed me all the way down the other.  Though i think he got bored of dragging me around the mountain because then he started a game of 'pretending' to drop me - so between him and the bumbling german man behind me who kept slipping into me it's a miracle i made it down the mountain alive!!

Though i did end up hurting my ankle - which wasn't too bad until i tried to carry my rucksack down some stairs the next day and it just completely gave out.  We went to halong bay the next day which was a good way to recover as i didn't have to carry my bag.  We spent a night on one of the Superior Junk boats and toured around all the islands and caves for 2 days which was really nice.  Unfortuantely the weather in northern vietnam wasn't great as it was cold and foggy, so we were really looking forward to hitting th ebeaches in thailand