Hue - Hanoi - Halong Bay

Next stop was Hue, another World Heritage site because of the Citadel and the Forbidden City within in it. I only spent 2 days here as my time is starting to run out and there's still so much that I want to see.

A tour around the Citadel was worth it - although a lot of the buildings within the Fobidden City were destroyed by American Bombers there are still a few to see and it's very impressive.

I also did a cruise down the Perfume River (which is brown and doesn't smell of perfume) A very relaxing day, cruising along and visiting some lovely temples.

Then it was on the night bus to Hanoi, a 12 hour affair that I wasn't looking forward to. We had quite an upmarket bus but the only seat that was left when I got on was near the back and it had a raised floor where the wheel of something was and so I spent the next 12 hours with my knees by my ears.

We arrived in Hanoi at 5am and I got a bike to the Old Quarter to find a hotel. Obviously most were still closed but my driver managed to knock one awake and I took a room. First glance was not impressive but I was so tired I agreed to take it. After sitting in the room for 20 minutes and spying 2 rather large cockroaches crawling out of the mouldy fan in the bathroom I decided that I just couldn't stay here. So, I went downstairs and informed the receoptionist man and asked for my passport back. Obviously this was not something he was prepared to give up so easily so he tried to promise me another, better room but I was having none of it. I put on my best authoritative voice and DEMANDED the return of my passport. That didn't work. After a good 15 minutes of arguing I wondered whether to start crying and appeal to his sensitive side but all of a sudden he decided that he couldn't speak English and walked away. In the end I paid a dollar, he gave it back reluctantly and I marched out into the morning feeling very pissed off with Hanoi.

Luckily it didn't take long to find another hotel which promised breakfast included and free internet, awesome! I tried to sleep for a few hours but soon realised that my sparkly new room smelled quite badly of damp so I got up and wondered around Hanoi.

It's a big city - it has about 4 million people living here and there are 3.5 million motorbikes so the roads are a little bit busy! I took a bike to the Museum and it's the most frightened I've been on the back of a bike so far, we had so many near misses. Again, there are no road rules and it's every man for himself.

Yesterday I took a boat trip to Halong Bay which was really good. The Bay is amazing, very picturesque and impressive. We cruised around for the day and also visited some caves which were amazing. They have large stalagmites which the Vietnamese translation into English is Penises from Heaven, cue lots of smirks and giggles (just from me!). It was a really nice day and we had a really good group of people on our boat.

Today is my last day in Vietnam. I've decided to visit Loas which I hadn't planned on doing and I also need to think of making my down to Singapore for my flight to OZ in 3 weeks so I need to push on. Next stop is Vientiane - I'm taking a flight because the 26 hour bus ride didn't appeal...