Ha Long day two and the journey from hell

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I write this from the bottom bunk of a train cell urm.. I mean sleeper carriage. We tried to book on the four berth soft sleeper carriage from Hanoi down to Hue but they were fully booked so the next step down is the 6 berth "soft" sleeper carriage. Well... We are an hour in and Eireann still looks shell shocked and is afraid to touch anything. There is a smeared hand print of questionable origin on the wall and on the top bunk is a family of Vietnamese eating pot noodles. Between us as the Vietnamese are a pair of french lads who are very nice and next door there is an American, a German and four people from Ashton! Small world! Oh bloody hell! We just emergency stopped! Scraping Eireann off the side wall of her bunk as I type!
It's only about 9pm now so it should calm down as people go to sleep. I have my uber ear plugs with me and everyone in our cell seems pretty nice. There is a Chinese tour party a few cells down. It smells like they are roasting up a duck or something! All I know is that our 6 person room has 7 people in it and its one of the least crowded on the train. I just found out the emergency stop was because the train hit a motorbike... The rider saw the train coming and just ran apparently. Leaving the bike on the track.. Clearly someone in this situation is a bit of a tosser! Anyways, I will tell you about today and probably update about this crazy journey as I go! We woke up early today (using my alarm, we learned the hard way yesterday that Eireann's didn't know what it was talking about.) We were going to another cave and Tyen wanted us to be the first there before it got busy. We were the first boat into the cave but all be did was go in a small circle around a lagoon and come back out again. The rest of the morning was spent sailing slowly through Ha Long Bay. (Train is moving again now) the bay is stunning and sat on the top deck of the boat with a breeze was lovely. It was raining a little but that helped keep the temperature down. The humidity was 100%!t(MISSING)oday so we were always very sticky whether it was raining or not. It took a good few hours to get from where we spent the night to the main dock at Ha Long city. Towards the end of the trip Tyen showed us how to make traditional Vietnamese spring rolls. Which, along with everything else on the boat was deep fried. We haven't been eating very much at all here in Vietnam. Partly due to how hot we are and partly because of the amount of grease everything is swimming in. Hopefully once we are further south we can try something more traditional (that never barked!!!!) we have had some strange vegetarian concoctions too; apparently there is a big market here for pretend meat. It is far far more realistic than quorn but what they had on the boat was pretend fish. The prawns were very strange and there was a mystery non meat on the first night that even had faux skin on! After lunch we headed to the little boat and then to shore. We then had a long wait for our bus to arrive. The bus was air conditioned but was uncomfortable because the driver pretty much kept his finger on the horn the entire time. It took about an hour longer to get back than it did to get there and we were then navigating Hanoi old quarter in rush hour in a bus. Quite the expedition!! We went back to the hotel we stayed at in Hanoi and they gave us a place to leave our bags and use the bathroom and the very limited wifi. (I tried to post yesterday's blog but the blog site was down) We needed some supplies for the train and went to a supermarket about a 5-10 minute walk away from the hotel. We were turned away unless we gave our bags to them whilst we shopped. We figured we would find another supermarket. We did but it took an hour of questing around Hanoi. Dinner was vegetable noodles eaten quickly before we got our taxi to to the train station. The sense of dread we felt when we saw our home for the night cannot be overstated. Behind us was a big Chinese tour group headed in our direction and our cell had four empty beds for quite a while. In the end we lucked out I think. Having a Vietnamese man with good English around can only be an advantage. Again we are in a technology dead zone so I won't be able to post this tonight. We have booked into a £18 a night hotel tomorrow so we are expecting a touch of luxury which is sorely missing tonight. There will probably be wifi there and ill be able to update. For now though I will try and get some snooze... If anything interesting happens ill report back! Kate and Eireann

2151 - Lights out!! The Vietnamese want to sleep as do the French. That means no reading for us English. There is a hell Of a storm going on outside. The lightning is almost continuous. Listening to bit of mumf until I'm sleepy enough.

2225 - lost sensation in both arms and legs. Decided lying down can only be done in 15 minute intervals or all circulation is lost. Just deeted up - there are definitely things living in here. Decided to sit up and watch the lightning. Lightning promptly stopped.

2236 - accidentally let go of my headphones before they stretched on to my ears... Almost knocked my nose off. Eireann is still staring into space, definitely trying to figure out if this is all real or not!

2308 - heavy breaking! Almost rolled into the corridor

0206 - the guards just came in with the brightest torch ever invented shone it in our face for a bit then slammed our door shut

0350 - very cold! Glad I spent £3 on a giant 100%!c(MISSING)ashmere scarf. There are blankets provided but their infestation status is unknown.

0548 - the Chinese children are awake and are running up an down the train screaming.

0635 - the Vietnamese are awake and are sitting on our beds as they are on the top bunk. Are we nearly there yet?

0838 - our Vietnamese cell mates have been given probation and are away! They live in a town called Dong Hoi we should be in Hue in 10 minutes but apparently there is a three hour delay!! The Chinese are starting to cook again. Pas bien!!

0915 - back on the "road" decided I probably should use the loo (hole on the floor which drops to the tracks which are visible below) the train is rocking and shaking and there is piss everywhere. Decided to hold it and lay off the beverages for the rest of the trip. We can't be that much longer!

0918 - Eireann has taken to reading horoscopes to pass the time 0923 - Eireann is now using "school days" as a unit of time and apparently by the time we get off this train we will have done more than 3!!

1056 - another random stop at a tiny little station in the middle of nowhere. The Chinese are getting restless. I am busting for a wee!! If we don't get there soon I'll pop!

1111 - I have been bitten!! I am more deet than woman these days so I don't know what it is.... Probably a new form of life has evolved in the duration of this journey!!

1118 - still not moving. Time for emergency starbursts!! 1135 - started to move again. Doing about 2mph

1202 - just stopped at a station... About 4 hours later than scheduled. The longer we travel the more delayed we get. All the Chinese have got off so its just us westerners left. Paul (blonde French) just said "you English love ze keep calm and carry on non? Well I sink I am calm but I'm not sure ow mooch longer I can carry on!"

1216 - Eireann has started singing songs about a numb bum. 1230 - the French are talking in French about the food they miss from back home. Canard and pain au raisin feature highly.

1256 - got up for a wander around the corridor. Been chatting with lad from Ashton. He has been showing us his travel guides of where is best to see in hue.

Finally arrive at our hotel at 2pm!!!

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