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After the first 5 hours of bus fun...well...hard plastic seats...not enough seats for everyone...vietnamese men hacking and gagging throughout the night...and the delightful smell of bodily odour around us we reached a service station in a remote part of eastern laos, thinking we were having a quick pit stop before heading on to the vietnamese border but oh no! We were here for 6 hours to wait until the border opened in the morning. The vietnamese on the bus who were in the know were quick to grab double seats for a night's rest while we were offered a $3 room in the adjoined guest house...neither option seemed too appealing. So we stayed up playing cards and chatting to an Argentinian and a Portuguese girl to pass the time.
We reached the border in the morning and it all went pretty smoothly with Visas and entry fees but our bus was slow to get going again as Vietnamese customs officials discovered dogs in boxes in the hold of our bus! O laughs! Drove through the wind and rain reaching Hanoi early evening. Thankfully the Backpackers hostel we had booked there was great and in a fab location near the cathedral and a street packed with french restaurants so treated ourselves to a nice meal that evening to recover from our 36 hour bus trauma!
The next day we did some hardcore sight seeing with visits to the Museum of Literature, Hoa Lo prison, which was initially built by the French imperialists toimprison and torture rebels, but was later used to house US airmen shot down during the Vietnamese war. We also took a trip to the lake and tried to spot the golden tortoise! Then ventured through the old quarter where there are streets for shoes, streets for sunglasses and fruitshakes (sort of wasp infested though!) as you are hassled by every passing street vendor of pineapples or whatever you can imagine! Reached a massive 3 storey market which once again sold everything under the sun, we could not believe the sheer amount of people and stuff in the place!!
In the evening we visited a theatre where we watched traditional Vietnamese water puppets perform to music, whcih we really enjoyed even though we seemed to be the youngest people in there by about 20 years! Visited a bar afterwards owned by an aussie expat which was great fun til it closed promptly at 12 when the police arrived, and the owner informed us that he hadn't being paying the police substantial enough bribes!!
The next day watched the world go by in a couple of cafes and bought box sets of friends, heros and brad pitt for about 2 quid each, amazing!
Then caught the overnight bus to Hoi An which was in fact a lush VIP bus so arrived at China Beach, halfway between Hoi An and Denang, the next morning feeling pretty fresh. We stayed at a guesthouse called Hoa's Place and Hoa was the most hospitable man we have met on our travels so far. He jus wanted us to 'relax' and 'chill out' while he did the running around for us, while he was drinking copious amounts of beer. He organised our car into town for us and we went to Sarah's Tailor Shop and picked out designs for dresses and clothes we wanted made, it was so exciting and we got a bit carried away, feeling like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman! We both had a couple of evening dresses made picking out the materials and designs ourselves and just some tops and trousers. They measured us up and the clothes were ready for fitting by the next morning!
Hoa's place was great as everyone eats together in the evenings, followed by few drinking games and then moving down to the beach to continue the party. A highlight was Lucy racing a Canadian guy along the beach but just after setting off, she ran into a volleyball net which promptly knocked her flying backwards...she sooo cool!
At 8am, hangovers in tow we were back for the fitting so final adjustments could be made to the dresses. The shop even called the postman to come to us so sending the dresses back home was a doddle!
Due to the typhoon weather in Vietnam buses and trains were proving very unreliable and since the clock was ticking on our time in South East Asia we decided to fly to Phnom Penh from Denang, via Saigon.
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