Vietnam Update!

Day 49      Hanoi

Today we woke up relatively late at 8.45am and had breakfast. Heidi and I then started our pampering session - we had bought face masks, hair masks and foot masks. So we put on the face and hair masks but then our room had no hot water so we were freezing washing off the hair ones! It was fun though. Then we went to the local market which wasn't so good because we weren't expecting it to be local, we were told it was touristy. So instead we just went shopping down the many streets of Hanoi and I bought some much needed underwear - note to self: bring more than 5 pairs of underwear for a 3 month trip. We walked across the lake bridge to a temple and took some photos then sat in the sun by the lake for an hour or so (this is just us 4 girls still, not the older 2). We all decided on Fanny ice cream for lunch (mine and Heidi's 3rd visit in less than 24 hours, I really take after my father). Heidi and I opted for the fondue which meant that we could choose 14 scoops of ice cream! They had over 20 flavours to pick from and so we chose 7 each. The fondue had a pot of melted chocolate in the middle over a candle then it had four sections around it - 1 with my ice creams, 1 with Heidi's, 1 with lots of fruit and 1 with about 25 wafers. It was awesome. We went back to hotel in the late afternoon to get ready for our night out. Heidi and I were ready an hour or so early so we caught a taxi into town and had some drinks in a cafe on the lakeside whilst the lake was all lit up which was really pretty. We met our group for dinner at a restaurant called 69 and the other group were eating there too so we all finished at the same time and went out to a bar with them. It was so much fun being with them all again. There's prohibition in Hanoi so when it came to midnight the bars had to close, however, the barman led us all to this garage place and then knocked on metal shutters then it opened up and we were bundled in.. turns out it was a huge nightclub! We had a bit of a party there as it was Halloween it was crazy. At 2am I was ready to leave to Leigh offered to take me home and Sophie and Matt came with us too. We stayed up chatting in my room waiting Heidi and the others to come back. They got in around 4am and everyone came to our room to hang out as some of us had to leave at 6am anyway so we just stayed up, I think we had 30minutes sleep :) It was the best night of my entire trip. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone in the morning as Sophie and Sarah were finishing in Vietnam and Leigh, Matt, Michael, Neil and Albert were too! BYE.x