Hanoi

Hello everyone

After a long bus ride (16 hours) from Hue, we arrived in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. We were dropped off in the hustle and bustle a bit tired and groggy from the bus ride and found a taxi to take us to the area we were staying, which is an expat area where Adams ex-collegue's sister lives as a head teacher (Janice). We didn't now what to expect from this area, following the advice given to "not get ripped off by the taxi and make sure the meter is rigged", we rocked up in a quiet residential area filled with tall apartment buildings etc and surrounded by a huge and beautiful lake. We found the house and were greeted by Abdoulla (Janice's partner) we were welcomed into their home which was massive and very beautiful, with a private room and bathroom and the comfiest bed since leaving UK over 4 months ago. So you can imagine we were over the moon! After 4 months of shite rooms and no amenities we could relax and actually make ourselves a cup of tea :)
Abdoulla was amazing, he took us to a great spot to eat some Pho, which was delicious and took care of us for the next 4 days. I went into the city on the back of his Vespa, whilst Adam rode with a guy named Dion, also an expat from NZ. We ate in a great place for lunch and sampled all the local dishes and then visited the temple of literature and Ho Chi Minhs masouleum. We met Jan and Doulla's son Kai, who was adorable and promised when he next came to norfolk we would take him to a footie game. One night we visited some great bars where a lot of the expats get together, a good thing about living in that world is seeing the great hidden places which you would never find as a tourist. We walked around Hanoi lake which took around 3.5 hours, it was a great walk spotting fisherman etc, not so great when we saw some dogs that had been thrown in and drowned.....gross.
A mixture of seeing the tourist sights and living with expats, painted a really good picture of life in Hanoi and we loved every minute, a massive thanks to Janice, Doulla and Kai for looking after us.
After 4 days of luxury we begrudgingly took our night bus across the border to Vientiane in Laos, 20+ hours of......fun.

xxxx