Hey guys! We got to Mui Ne after another long bus trip! we rewarded ourselves with a really cute little beach bungalow which is 10 steps from the beach with it own cute little veranda, pretty idyllic!

After staying in the posh room in Hanoi we downgraded slightly to room on the 6 th floor with a great noise machine (more commonly know as broken aircon) and a baby cockroach! The streets of Hanoi are crazy, millions of scooter and cyclos going in all directions, usually straight at you! Went to see the dead body of Ho Chi Min at his massive mausoleam, you had to shuffle round his glass coffin thing in this dimly lit room, surreal! that night we went to see a traditional water puppet show, they were probably the scariest puppets i've ever seen dancing around to traditional vietnamese singing and music! for dinner we went to a restaurant that had turtle on the menu! Rob went for pigeon, which was served with the head and everything!!

We decided to get the overnight train to Hue, only hard sleeper bunks were left which was fine for us coz they're (a bit) cheaper, nearly missed the train as we were in the wrong bit of the station and had to run across all the other platforms/train tracks but made it! our compartment was 3 bunks high and we had the top ones which were nearly impossible to manouver into but were ace once we were in there! until.... about 10 minute in i notcied a ridge 6 inches above my face that was full of rubbish and 2 enourmous cockroach antenni which were waving at me, i don't know how i got down so quick but the vietnamese people in there with us must have thought we were nuts!

so basically we had a rubbish nights sleep tormented by mr cockraoch, after the praying mantis incident rob did man up and swap bunks with me (felt pretty guilty when it starting running round and trying to escape onto the bunk)! rob tried to kill it but then it vanished which was worse! but we survived and made it to Hue!

Hue was funny, we got out of the train station it was like a swarm of paparatzzi (thats was rob likes to pretend anyway, cluster B!) of vietnamese trying to get us in their cars or both of us with backpacks onto their motorbikes to go to cheap hotel! our "retro" vietnam guidebook (5years out of date) got to us to our first choice of hotel which was inconvieniently being demolished but got us to another proper cheap but nice room for 3 quid which car battery powered wooden aircon! We visited the cittadel and booked on a tour of the vihn moc tunnels for the next day. what a trip! 12hours in a 9 seater bus was interesting! the tunnels were amazing though!! a whole village lived in them for 6 years during the war!

Next we got the bus to Hoi An a UNESCO world heritage site so no scooters allowed in the old town and no gross new buildings, it was proper beautiful! Wanted to try the Hoi An specialities for lunch and went to a back street cafe and it was amazing. there but no menus, we sat down and this sweet old lady (who spoke no english at all) bought us out plates of food and started to show us how to make these rice paper wrap things with interesting looking skewers of unidentifiable meat? tasted real good and she kept bringing more out and making mine for me and enjoyed filling rob's sauce with extra chilli! It was so random but one of our best lunchs we had!

Not much to do in Hoi An but enjoy the cafes along the river (rob definaltey enjoyed the local fresh beer, 14p a glass! ) or go to the millions of tailor shops there. I got a beautiful silk dress designed, fitted and made all in one day! the lady was really sweet, she did like to touch my skin alot which was pretty funny! vietnamese girls wear a ridiculous amount of clothes and face masks in the heat to cover up becuase they want to keep their skin really white, which is funny coz we go to hot places to bake our white skin to get a tan!

That's when we got the night sleeper bus to Nha Trang! and now we've been in Mui Ne for a couple of days and justed booked the bus to HCMC! ok, back to the beach now! hope your all having a great weekend! lotsa love from Lucy and Robert! xxxxxxx