Good Morning Vietnam!

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We finally made it to Vietnam despite everyone we have mets concerns that we are rubbish travellers and would not get here by ourselves! Ye of little faith! Although we havent left the airport! (Only joking!)

We were depressed in Bangkok for two days having had to leave Australia - so we went shopping which appeared to do the trick. We forgot we had to get a bleeding Visa to get into Vienam and seriously considered just going back to Australia for 4 weeks but thought everyone would laugh at us so we had to carry on!

We gave our passports to some random woman to get our visas and hoped that she would be there 2 days later when we went to get them. Lucky for us she was - but it cost us an arm and a leg - we were so ripped off! By the time we got them back we only had a window of 6 hours to get to Vietnam - who says we are crap travellers!!! Louise hated Bangkok as expected but has learnt to barter down to her last 20 baht! Well done Louise!

A taxi driver in Bangkok wet himself when we told him we were going to Vietnam - he said what are you going to eat - they only eat dog! They do not have any cows or chickens and if you ask them what meat it is they say chicken but it is always dog..................(we soon forgot this advise and fell into the dog trap on our first meal - yum yum - we are now strict vegetarians!)

Nothing else to report so we flew to Hanoi on the rustiest plane we have ever ever seen! On the bright side - was cheap! Now we know why...

We are staying for 6 dollars a night in the biggest place we have seen the whole trip - our bedroom has pillars - 4 of them! We also have an unlimited supply of purple pineapples - no idea what the hell they are but we are only eating things we can peel or get out of a packet!

Went to Halong Bay today which was stunning - on another boat ride. Made friends with some Thai people from Bangkok who are going to take us out when we get back and some people from Kuait but only because he started to talk to Stacey about the mafia and we thought we had better be nice! They were all lovely though and apparenlty can have 4 wives each - if they can be bothered!

Louise has had her blondest moment yet of the trip - we went to a fish market on Halong Bay to buy our lunch which floats in the water so all the fish and crabs can still swim in their little cages etc. Louise decided against buying any fish cos she was concerend about how long they had been stitting there and therefore were not fresh. They were still alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I think the dog incident is still haunting her and she needs some sleep.

On a brighter note we have almost been killed several times in the last 24 hours just trying to leave the hotel. The traffic is chaotic to put it mildly and they dont believe in any traffic rules or even traffic lights. The only way to cross the road is to stalk a local - or walk in front of 200 motorbikes and hope to god they swerve around you! So far we have been lucky - although it did take us 20 minutes to get back to our hotel tonight just because we were dropped off on the wrong side of the road!

Pictures to follow.......when we can be bothered..........

Love us

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