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Waking up on a boat in the middle of the sea was the first thing on this mornings itinerary, and it was so beautiful.
Up to the deck for some breakfast and then into our cooking class...spring roll making. We were all shown how to roll spring rolls however Vietnamese men believe that growing your little finger nail is lucky and therefore watching the captain stroke his nail all over the rice paper was a little disturbing. Onwards and upwards and the spring rolls actually tasted really good.
Bus journey back to hanoi.
Back in hanoi we had a few hours to kill before catching the night bus so we lugged our very heavy and over packed rucksacks into a beautiful restaurant outlooking the river and centre of hanoi. Out of place is certainly what we felt looking round at the smart waiters trying to climb over our bags which we had dropped in a heap on the floor.
And then it was time for our first night bus experience. As we climbed onto the night bus with 2 girls we met from holland and we were very excited. The night bus contains 3 rows of ineffect bunk beds. We quickly grabbed 5 beds on the bottom floor and settled in, little did we know this was a terrible decision. As the bus filled up we finally set off until an hour in we began to stop along the roads and pick up hitchhikers. However as there was no more beds left they lay on the aisles inbetween the rows of beds. This therefore meaning we were surrounded by sleeping Vietnamese men. The smell was to put it bluntly horrific and reminded me of gravy, weird I know. As we got closer to border control the hikers were shoved into the toilet whilst the bus was inspected.
First lesson of night buses learnt the hard way: always get on the top bunk!
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