Good morning from Vietnam, actually a painstaking early morning for us given that we have just arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam after a 14 hour bus journey. It was probably the longest bus journey or journey of my entire life but I'll touch on that in a bit.

I'd love to say hue was enjoyable but I can't lie it was a bloody nightmare. Hue itself looked a really beautiful place but sadly it's impossible to see it when it rains from arrival to departure. To say it rained is an understatement as it does not describe it in the right way. It felt like someone was constantly pouring a bucket of water over you anywhere you walked. We had plans to take a river trip or to the springs which was impossible given the westher and everyone you passed had rain jackets on trying to find cover. We stupidly decided to stay for two nights in the hope it would stop but it literally rained constantly for 48 hours and we spent this time walking around in wet clothes. Just to put it in comparison england gets around 60mm of rain on average for nov/dec but hue gets on average about 600/700mm. Ed it had that feeling of Glastonbury where there was just nowhere to go that was dry, hard times indeed.

One highlight was trying a very odd drink. I knew it would be rough but couldn't stop myself ordering it when we had to find cover from the rain, the drink was 'buttered rum'. Yes as it sound it's contents were rum, vanilla syrup, sugar, lime and butter, yes butter! It was pleasant at first but you can't get over the fact there was butter floating on the top, those damn sneaky Vietnamese making me order weird things.

The hotel 'bing doung hotel 1' was ok but the problem was that we just had no means to get dry which just makes things uncomfortable. I enjoyed the food as I got involved with crispy noodles with shrimp and even had some curry but we were glad to move onto pastures new and certainly mute dry.

Unfortunately pastures new means another mammoth bus journey. The sleeping quarters on this journey were not built for a 6ft bloke like myself. To be honest the bus would be better off transporting someone like the size of willy wonkas helpers but even Tina found it cramped. We had the back of the bus which means sharing a bed like seat with 3 other middle aged Vietnamese women. I can safely say my first experience of 5 in a bed was something I don't want to repeat and it didn't help one of them had an elbow in my back for 10hours of the journey. It also doesn't help being at the back as everytime the driver brakes the brake lights up the whole of sleeping area but thankfully the Vietnamese haven't really heard of using the brakes so it wasn't all bad.

Anyway I apologise for this blog as it is more like a rant but this is what happens when I have no sleep, no coffee and I'm soaked through. On the plus Hanoi is dry, hostel is good and I see Ipswich won 1-0, well done to Keith Andrews for the winner he needs to be signed at all costs.

Moss not sure if you went to the game as I heard about the car accident, hope your alright mate not sure if you got my text. If you did go, how was it?

Anyway robbie c out for now.