We had decided to try out the sleeper train as opposed to the bus and so we embarked on our 18 hour train journey at 18:40. We settled ourselves in with a few card games, a bit of reading and a dinner sandwich before hitting the sack. Luckily we had managed to bag a four bed cabin to ourselves for the first 14 hours. We were pleased when the train arrived in Hanoi at the advertised arrival time, and not whenever the driver felt like arriving.

Sometimes Claire makes life decisions that she's pretty sure her mum, Kath, would disapprove of. Getting a haircut in Vietnam was one of those. Claire had convinced herself that an emergency haircut was required as daily she was having to brush out dreadlocks. After asking the hostel for some advice, we set off and soon came across somewhere that vaguely resembled what we would call a hairdresser. There were no customers and around eight staff, seven of which were asleep. They gave Claire a quote equivalent to £10, bargain, and she only wanted a trim, what could go wrong? She was guided out to a back room for the wash and settled into the laid back chair. On one side was a person asleep in another chair and on the other side someone asleep on a sofa. The wash was uneventful, but lacked the head massage during conditioning that Claire was used to. Once sat in the cutting chair, the man that was sleeping in the head sink appeared, he was to be her main hairdresser. We say 'main' because several people were involved in this trim, in fact at one point she had three people combing her hair. The main hairdresser was a fairly short Vietnamese man, with no English interpretation or speaking skills and nails so long they were almost curling. This could be interesting. Claire left with hair definitely shorter and in some kind of style, but not necessarily one she would have chosen.

After seeing a few cities they all become very similar and the things to do also become very similar. We wondered around the night market, comparing it to previous ones we had seen, and then went in search of some cheap dinner.

The following day we decided we would wonder up the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum to see how, after so many decades, they had managed to keep the man in a presentable state. Unfortunately we arrived at 11.30 and it was closed. We were perplexed as to what it could possibly be closed for? Perhaps he had an afternoon engagement with Elvis and Stalin, but surely a dead persons calendar can't be that full. We later found out that the mausoleum is open 7-11 each morning, we decided it must have something to do with preserving him. Ah well, we thought, we'll endeavour to see him another day.

That afternoon we went in search of a Vietnamese massage. After reading TripAdvisor reviews and browsing the local menus for the best deal we settled on one. We were both in the same room and asked to strip down to our undies while the masseuses stood their waiting. Greg obediently did so and then realised he was stood in a brightly lit room in just his underwear with two Vietnamese ladies watching. He also realised he had a few paces to get to the bed and so he decided the most appropriate thing to do would be a half jog/half shuffle much to the amusement of everyone present. The massage was excellent, with the best pressure elements from the Cambodian massage combined with what we westerners recognise more as a traditional massage - oil and rubbing. The only really bazaar thing was a couple of times the masseuses simply disappeared from the room without any explanation only to reappear a few minutes later and continue as if nothing had happened...perhaps, as we've now been travelling for well over a month, our smell was too much to bear for a prolonged period! We followed our massage with one of the local delicacies, an egg coffee. We ventured down a small alley to somewhere a local had recommended, what we found was a little indoor garden with all the local Vietnamese enjoying their coffees, we got a few stares. The egg coffee is, as it sounds, coffee mixed with a frothed egg which is actually quite delicious. The standard accompaniment is a plate of sunflower seeds which we tucked into.

For dinner we met up with Claire's friend from when she worked at Manchester Children's Hospital, Nic and her shiny brand new husband Richard. They were fresh on their honeymoon having gotten married only a few days before. We dolled ourselves up as much as possible, but could not compete with the newly weds who were looking radiant. We went for some local street food - delicious seafood and a few beers. Unfortunately they must have seen us coming because the food cost more than it does in most posh restaurants! Still it was the best seafood we'd had and so we can justify it, sort of. It was an excellent evening of catch up and giggles.