Re-united....for a day!

The last blog I made was back in China, neglected it a bit over the last few weeks but we're back on it now. I left the guys in China and headed off to Laos. Took 30 hours on the sleeper bus to get to Luang Prabang in the centre of Laos, was suprisingly alright, slept quite well. I met up with Kim and her friends in Vang Vieng. Spent a few days there with them tubing down the river and drinking too much. Then I went off on my own again down to the capital Vientienne. Shared a room with a guy I met on the bus, although it took ages to find a room as the Asian Sea games were being held in Vientienne. Met a Belgian guy while I was eating and we went out for the night with a dutch and american couple we met, ended up having a really good night with them. Was picked up from my hotel the next afternoon to get the bus from Vientienne to Hanoi. 24 hours on a normal bus (not a sleeper). Was stuck on the back seat with the rest of the travellers. Met Yvonne from northern Holland on the bus. Spent the next day with her seeing the sights of Hanoi, its a really busy city, the traffic is like being back in India but its suprising how quickly you adapt to it again.

That evening we booked a sleeper bus up to Sapa on the border of Vietnam and China to do some trekking. Colm and Simon turned up at the hostel just as we were about to leave so had a quick catch up with them before we left (They were more interested in watchin Harry Enfields Scousers sketch on youtube...!). Got to Sapa at 7am and by 9am we'd found a room, left our bags and gone off on a 2 day trek through the rice paddies. The views were spectacular and the weather was loads better than we thought it would be, everyone had told us to expect freezing conditions but it was boiling, needed the sunscreen! Had some really nice food at the homestay and got an early night after a hard days walking. The next day Yvonne and I got up and watched the sunrise at 6am, was well worth it, was spectacular and more succesful then the one we got up early for in Tiger Leaping Gorge. Walked back into Sapa that day and decided to stay another night so we could go to the Bac Ha market. Cost $10 dollars for the market day, the market itself was really good, bought a load of stuff and got my hair cut, it had been annoying me for ages. the rest of the day was a bit boring, they just wanted to find things to do to justify the $10. That night we were back on the sleeper bus again and back to Hanoi.

Got to Hanoi at 5.30am and in a bit of a mad rush again booked a Halong bay tour and we were back on the bus again at 8am after a rushed breakfast. Got to the boat at lunchtime and got to know the rest of the backpackers on board. Spent the afternoon jumping off the top of the boat into the water (a lot higher than it looked) and then we went kayaking to a cave. The cave wasn't great but the kayaking was fun and the sunset (left) was really nice. Had a great evening partying on the boat and then the next day we were off to our own deserted Island to stay another night. Went tubing around the island (They tow you around on a tube behind a speed boat, I'll try and get hold of some videos that were taken, was great fun though) There were less of us this time and the generator packed up at about 6pm so we all played a few drinking games by candle light! The next day we came back to Hanoi, I was expecting to see Colm and Simon around somewhere, the one person I wasn't expecting to see was Rob, who jumped off the back of a bike in front of me having just come from the Chinese border. We found Colm and Simon and the 4 of us were back together again. Unfortunately Simon had just found out that his Gran had passed away and he decided to head back to the UK for a week or 2. Yvonne's trip was coming to an end aswell so she headed back to Holland, then Colm headed to Halong bay on his own so it was just myself and Rob heading South to Hue.

Hopefully I'll be back on to tell you about Hue sooner rather then later. We meet up with COlm tomorrow morning to head further South to Hoi An!

Love Paul