I've always wanted to say that in Vietnam! Done now. I even have a T-shirt with it on! How exciting!
This is when we tried to split from the main group for a nice little holiday from others to spend some time by ourselves. This didn't overly work our as we managed to drag 13 others with us! We arrived in a rainy Hanoi as the tail end of the typhoon rages in. But we were in Hanoi with a task to do: to book our trip to Ha Long Bay. After a morning of scrabbling over brochures, haggling and avoiding red tape, we all seemed to agree to disagree and booked ourselves on different boats - which suited us down to the ground as we wanted a break anyway!
With that sorted for the next day, we headed for the city itself. There are some really nice and interesting places to visit in Hanoi including a one pillar pagoda, a literacy college and a flag tower. But the most unusual and my (Alex) personal favourite was a little pond down winding back alleys. During a raid in 1972, 32 American B-52 bombers were shot down over the city and one of them landed in this pond. The locals left it, mainly submerged, to act as a memorial for all those that lost their lives. And as you stood in what felt like someone's back garden and looked at it, you couldn't help but be moved. There was even an American dressed in Shakespearian attire and riding a tandem bicycle filming a documentary as we were there!
Later that evening, we met a good friend from back home, Gary. We had been missing him by a couple of days in China and Laos but finally managed to be in the same place at the same time. So we had a good old natter and catch up, swapping travel stories about ridiculous situations we had managed to find ourselves in, over dinner and a local pint. What a great finish to the day!
But tomorrow was one of the things we had been waiting for since the start of the trip...
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