Just the two of us again

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My Mum and Kate flew home today, it's very strange, it feels like they were with us the whole time and have gone on a day trip today. I keep expecting them to come back to our hotel!!
We had a great time with them, though I'm not sure my Mum would describe it as great!! I think she was very shocked by the way of life here. It is dirty and smelly. Hanoi is very very busy as well, and there are motorbikes everywhere which means you have to be on your toes all the time, more about that later though..

When we arrived in Hanoi, it was pouring down! So, we stayed in the first hotel we found, it was only $8 a night, my Mum wasn't very impressed with it though.
The first day, we took a couple of cyclos through the city to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum. The cyclo is an experience in itself, the traffic is crazy. Matt described the experience as like one of those 3d movie things where all the cars are flying at you, only you know you might get might actually get hit.
We took a day trip to Tam Coc, which is the "Halong Bay of the rice paddies" and got rowed down the river in a little boat.

We took an overnight train to Sapa which is in the very north, almost on the Chinese border, and very high up in the mountains. Sapa is gorgeous, even though it rained! It is very green, and the air is nice and cool and fresh, and the views were better than I imagined they would be. We spent 3 days trekking through tribal villages, it was quite difficult because it was muddy and slippery. The women from the local tribes followed us and helped us (and then demanded we buy something!) They got a bit annoying after a bit, but the girls were pleasant and interesting, they can all speak really good english but they are illiterate. There are 52 ethnic minorities in Vietnam, and they all speak different languages, so many of them don't speak Vietnamese! We stayed a night in a homestay, with a family from the Black Hmong tribe, we ate tea and drank lots of rice wine with the family, then I helped with the washing up!

We took an overnight train back to Hanoi (I didn't sleep much though, it felt like we were on the runaway mine train!) and found a hotel, then I was crossing the road and got knocked over by a motorbike!! It was soooo embarassing! We were all crossing, then everyone stopped except mebecause I hadn't seen the bike. They all shouted, so I ran, unfortunately the bike swerved in the same direction I ran. Luckily I was wearing my big backpack on my back and a smaller day pack on my front so I was well padded, I fell over though and banged my knees and hands and scraped my elbow. It didn't hurt, I was just mortified! I have a very impressive bruise on my knee now.

After that, we went on a boat trip to Halong Bay, we stayed one night on the boat then two nights on Cat Ba island. The boat was lovely, very posh : ) Me and Matt jumped off the side into the sea, it was really high, when I landed in the water, it all went up my bum so I felt like I had had a colonic. We went to see a mad cave, it was massive. It's called surprising cave because it is so huge. On Cat Ba, we went in a kayak to Monkey island, Matt whinged because it hurt his arms, and then we spent a whole day relaxing on the beach. My favourite part of the trip was just sitting on the boat looking at Halong Bay, it was lovely.

Now we are back in Hanoi. We have got our passports back with Chinese visas in them, oooh yeah!!!!!!!!! So we have booked the bus to China tomorrow! Not for long though, getting the train (30 hours!!!!) to Shanghai, then a boat (44 hours!!!) to Osaka in Japan.

A man has just told Matt that if he gets on his bike, he will take him to see a 17 year old girl, who will dance for him, drink vodka with him, and anything else he wants. I'm guessing from the gestures he is making, she has got big breasts.

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Comments

[sandra smith]

did he???
you didnt say if matt went or not??? Or is that for the next entry??