Hanoi, the Special Area, big rocks and boat rides!

Hey folks!!!!

I will carry on the adventure from the 17th Feb where Simon and I spent a full day in Hue! Hue is a city about halfway up Vietnam and the majority of the place is based within the walls of a citadel. We had a bit of a lie in, which was interupted twice by the staff mistakenly coming into our room, silly staff! We then got out of our nice warm beds and entered the freezing cold air to take a stroll around the citadel. First stop after entering the walls was a temple called Thai Hoa (i think). This was another standard temple where you couldnt take photos in the main room but was still reasonably cool and we spent some time chilling out, taking photos and touching all the stuff we weren't meant to like giant bells and drums.

We then continued our walk for a while and popped off to the post office to use the internet. After this we decided to get some food then as we were waiting for our sleeper train up to Hanoi, we headed off to take some photos from one of the bridges over the Perfume river (this is meant to give a purple glow to your photo, i think lonely planet got it wrong.....surprising that!!!). we then got a pizza made to eat on the journey and got two incredibly overpriced cyclos to the train station to begin the next leg of our journey! The train was meant to leave just after 8pm but this ended up setting off closer to 9.30. Once we were on the train, as with most of the westerners who were put in the same compartment as us, we found our beds occupied by people who shouldnt be there or as in my case, 3 metal tables. Eventually though, all got sorted though! We got chatting to Rob and Nat from Manchester (im still travelling with them now!) and had a few beers on the train and a little explore around through the compartments. Once we had ran out of beer, Rob tried to get out of the carriage to find some more but being northing couldnt opperate a sliding door and was just tugging at it (the northern comment was a joke!). Anyhoo, i the clever southerner sorted out the door problem but then after climbing over sleeping Vietnamese people for the entire 10 carriages of the train we discovered the bar was closed and shortly afterwards we all went to bed to catch some z's!

The train arrived in Hanoi around lunchtime and the four of us hopped into a taxi to the old quarter of Hanoi and found a couple of rooms in a hotel.

The hotel i noticed after dumping all my stuff was decorated in a war style and even had its own air raid shelter!! We all went off to get some lunch and met up with Rob & Nats friend, Raymond from Holland. Rob decided to go back to the hotel for a nap but Si, Nat, Ray and I headed off to see the sites of Hanoi. Firstly, Hanoi is very cool. I have only mainly seen the old quarter but its full of winding little streets and full of life, probably my favourite city in Asia so far. First we went to a temple at the lake, where there is a giant encased turtle which im sure has a story which i cant remember behind! We then headed off for a walk through some more of the old quarter to find what is meant to be the best temple in Hanoi, the Temple of Literature. On the way as Ray was guiding us with a map he had, we discovered we were in a place called the Delicious Area. We found the temple and had a good look around, again there was a turtle theme but again i am not quite sure of the significance of it! The temple used to be a place of learning in the past and that is where it gets its name from. After this we headed back to the Delicious Area for some Beer Hoi (very cheap beer from big kegs or containers) and made continuous bad jokes about the Delicious area and what we were doing there (i will never grow up).  We met back up with Rob and then booked our trip for the next day to Halong Bay. After this we headed off to an awesome curry house where the food was good and served to us by a waiter who was the spitting image of Cat from Red Dwarf! Ray, Nat and I then managed to get hold of some darts from our hotel and headed off to an Irish Pub that Ray had found and played darts for a while, most of the game was spent with all of us trying to get a double one to win, i won! yay!

The following day was an early start for a 2 day boat trip to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is very scenic area full of rocks jutting out of the water all over the place. We got a mini bus there from Hanoi and arrived around lunch time for dinner on the boat which was pretty good. We then headed off to look around a cave which was pretty standard and they tried to jazz it up with some funky neon lights which made it rather tacky! The five of us bought a couple of bottles of vodka from a lady in a little boat as it was cheaper than buying it on the boat. As soon as we boarded with it though one of the crew member rocked over and placed a sheet of paper on our table telling us it would cost a service charge of $5 per bottle to drink our own alcohol on board. We gave him a short answer to this which revolved around the word no. We then dropped off some people at Cat Ba island and went off to do a spot of Kayaking, in for me and Simon, floating. We very much lacked motivation and so we just sat there in the water for a while. The rest of the day was spent having another dinner of lots of small different dishes to share and then lots of drinking games. The evening was finished with Simon being rather naked and vomitous in the bathroom causing a change reaction of me puking also but in a less naked manner! (It was cheap vodka on a boat mum! im allowed to be sick in that circumstance!). Anyhoo the room on the boat itself was pretty sweet!

The next morning (20th Feb) was spent on the boat. Its hard to tell you much more than that for this trip in terms of what we did because we just lazed about enjoying the views. It is deffinately worth visiting and pretty darn beautiful. Also really good value for money at $30 for a nights accomodation and everything else included. Once we got off the boat we had to wait around for a little while for a mini bus which took us to a restaurant for some more good free food then back to Hanoi by the evening. Rob and I went off to use the internet and then strolled around for a while finding a bakery on the way (Vietnams French influence) and buying a few things. Rob then hired a dvd player and we watched Into the Wild before going down to the War themed bar in our hotel for a can of coke and a spot of human darts, involving Simon, an old life jacket and well... some darts, very risky business, especially when Dutch Raymon aimed low!

The two Mancs woke us up the next morning but, we both stayed in bed for a little longer before heading out for a lazy day in the old quarter of Hanoi. I bought a fake North Face bag as my old school rucksack which i have for like 8 years finally died :(. The two of us then headed off to a little place of heaven we had spotted and played some PS2, more to the point some Pro Evo for a couple of hours. May i also add that i didnt lose a single game! It was good to doss about and do some normal stuff for a couple of hours! We then headed off and bought a load of cheap dvds, especially tv box sets with like every episode of each show ever on. (i think we bought roughly 40 seasons of shows between us). We then settled down to watch another film with with Mancs. After this we checked the dvds we had just bought and it seemed some of them didnt work. I went back to complain but when the store owners showed me they did work i bought 15 playstation games off them and a couple more dvd sets. I feel i had the moral victory.

Friday 22nd Feb - Today was the day for the trip to Tam Coc (this is known as the Halong Bay on land). We headed off againg fairly early about 100km south of Hanoi. The guides then took us to 2 temples before lunch. Both of which looked the same as one another and both of which were equally boring. Temples now have to be pretty spectacular to impress me! We then had a measeley lunch which was including in the trip before strolling over to the river where we would all get a row boat of our own to share with one other. The man in charge told me i should get a hat. This prompted me to buy a rather nice conicle hat with a pink chin strap. (i was going to be a trend setter back in England but i appear to have lost it). We then proceeded to be rowed down a really relaxing river enjoying the scenery for 2 hours. Half of the way through the journey we got boarded by a 50 year old Vietnamese woman. She took over some of the rowing on the way back but this crazy lady rowed with her feet not with her hand! I liked her until she asked for a tip. Once the boat journey was over we had to wait around for far to long for the minibus to come back and pick us up. You see the man at the hotel in Hanoi who sold us all our tickets promised us that we would be back by 6pm to catch a 24 hour bus ride to the capital of Laos. This lateness caused us to be an hour late. We made the hotellier give us free accomodation and went off to drown ourselves on beer hoi. We found one that cost 10p for half a pint, not too bad! Then we played a little more pro evo and hit the sack. I will leave you there, next time i will have a whole new country to talk about!

Toodles xx