The East Coast

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After Phu Quoc and our Bus back to Saigon we just chilled out for a few days in the City really, stayed in a maze of streets that took some getting used too, got so lost on my own the first night I had to get a taxi having looked for the hotel for about an hour, got a moto taxi and I was about 2 mins away, would never have found it though, was like the labyrinth.

Didn’t do much at all really, we went to the Water park again, wasn’t as busy today and we ran around like kids as usual getting on the rides as many times as possible, as usual messed around and nearly got a broken nose when tipping me and Dave off the tame rubber ring ride, him kicking me in the face! Oh and Dave somehow managed to go down a waterslide that was dry, to be fair the water was running at the top but he soon hit a screeching stop ha ha!

Apart from that we did a bit of drinking and shopping and decided with only about 10 days left on our Visa we should get up to the Capital Hanoi and booked an open bus ticket, we decided to try and do it in one hit, over 40 hours and jumped on, I was so excited at the prospect, I cant tell you how much so!

We set off at 7 am for the first leg to Muine which was about 6 hours or so, that was easy enough and had some funny English lads on there which made it go quicker, only a handful of people stayed on for the next 6 hour leg to Nha Trang so Dave and I at least managed to get the back seat to ourselves so stretched our legs and slept, 12 hours in total we decided to get off at Nha Trang as our guide book said it was good and we were cream crackered.

Managed to catch Tottenham beat the Hammers 3-4, I spoilt the ambience of the quiet little bar screaming and swearing my head off at the TV, especially with the last minute winner! We stayed for a couple of days, the place was cool and a had a funny night club with the locals bang into their Techno and Dave and I drinking some strange local concoction that could strip paint and came out in a huge peanut butter jar.

We then decided it was time to stop putting off and got on our 36 hour bus trip to Hanoi.

Now the locals aren’t the most considerate when on a Bus, I had managed to get 2 seats to myself as did Dave, but my two “friendly” locals decided to recline their chairs and in Vietnam they don’t go back the standard few inches, they go back like a bed, so after an hour of so of trying to get them to move their chairs forward and them looking at me vacantly, I started to bang the chair every time they fell asleep (a game Dave and I play a lot now) still didn’t work on this occasion so ended up sleeping in a little bundle underneath the chairs! Arrived in Hoi An after 12 hours and had enough time to buy some water and food before getting back on for the next 5 hour trip to Huie. Now we were meant to get to Huie for about 13.00 and then leave for Hanoi at 19.30 so at least giving us a few hours to stretch our legs and get acclimitised to the outside world again, but oh no, we got stuck in the traffic jams of all traffic jams, 6 hours on a long straight nothing to do road, was torturous cars as far as the eye could see in either direction and all because a beer lorry had overturned on a small mountain road, drinking the goods I thinks!!!!

So this meant we arrived in Huie at 19.25 and had to get straight on the final 13 hour leg with no toilet stop, food stop, water stop nothing, not a happy boy!

Pretty horrible now to be fair, Dave and I both had the proper hump and were crammed in, the next 13 hours or so wasn’t fun, wont bore you with the nothingness we endured but we eventually arrived in Hanoi safe and sound anyways!

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Photos

Traffic Jam
We were happy bunnies!

Leading upto the Beer
The driver had blatantly been hitting the bottle!

Back log
Queue going backwards, could have been worse could have been at the back!

Passing the Time
Had to do something to kill the boredom, decided to crush Dave in his seat for 5 mins or so!