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So my tour started on Monday. Got to meet all my fellow travellers. Quite a mixture of people. All Australians but have 2 blokes traveling separately that would be in there 50s. Another two guys traveling together, 23 and 29. An eccentric 60 year old woman who's already providing us with plenty of laughs and a 28 year old chick who's a lawyer. Unfortunately the majority of them drop off as we go and we get new ones so I guess it just means we get to meet more people. All a great group of people with some awesome travel stories. Hearing some of them make me not want to cone back. South America sounds awesome and everyone who has been has given it big wraps.
Anyway, we started in Hanoi. What a bustling city. Very run down for a major city but crazy with traffic. I've taken a few videos to show when I get back but basically you just cross the road at your leisure and all the scooters dodge you. Took off yesterday to Halong Bay. Beautiful place. If you can't wait to see what I'm talking about, look it up online. Went kayaking here and did mangere bombs off the top deck of our three story boat. Seafood for lunch and dinner. Susan's favorite but she did well and tried a bit of everything. Fish, crab, prawn, squid. You name it, we had it. Heading out later to eat snake. Apparently they cut it open infront of you, do a shot of blood with it's pumping heart in (eek) and then they take away the meat to cook for eating. This isn't part of the tour but something we've arranged on our own accord. Our tour leader has decided he is coming with us to try it too. Looking at doing a water puppet show later, just Susan and I, then home to pack. Another half day tomorrow followed by an overnight train to Hue.
Yesterday (14 April) we had a full day in Hanoi to do as we pleased so a few of us decided the night before that we would get up early and set off at 8am to do some sight seeing. Spent the day walking around Hanoi going to Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, palace and the Hanoi Hilton (a French prison used to detain US pilots in the Vietnam war). Jumped on an overnight train to Hue at 7pm with three bottles of vodka and had a jolly good time. Had the 5 younger people in our cabin drinking away until some ungodly time. Was definitely after 12 because we sang happy birthday for one of the guys. Still sitting on train at 10am today so will post this when I get some internet connection.
Went out for dinner with the younger tour members and our guide. Snake on the menu. Had vodka/snake blood shots, vodka/snake bile shots and nine different servings of snake. Interesting night. Tasted reasonably ok with the exception of the bile shot.
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