Another leisurely get up today, just plodded along this morning and spent the morning getting sorted and packing for 12pm check out. We were able to leave our bags in reception for the day which is helpful because our taxi isn't until 8.30pm so we have a long day ahead of us. We were thinking of going on the bikes to the beach despite the rain, but with us not having a hotel room to come back to and get dry we decided against it. We also decided against the spa day as although in uk prices its amazing it's still a lot of money for the sake of being pampered when we don't really need to be! So we set off into town again, which we don't mind because the walking gives us exercise and we always enjoy watching everything going on in the streets. All the colours from the fruit stalls are great and I love the big trees here, they're so big and not quite like normal trees. They're a lot more like lots of branches all wrapped around each other to form trunks, and people stick lots of intense sticks in the bark and flowers. You don't go through a street without seeing a couple of places with birdcages hanging from the balconies or trees, and I love looking at all the art and ceramic bowls and dishes.
Despite it only being a matter of 2 and a half hours since breakfast Liam decided he fancied some spring rolls, I don't blame him they're the best spring rolls ever whichever restaurant you go in! So we sat down and had a plate of spring rolls and of French fries to share. A bit more walking saw us stop at another cafe and order chocolate milkshakes which were also very yummy! We looked around some great little places where they were carving wood into fabulous sculptures. We bought a simple little wooden Vietnamese lady because it was quite stylish and light enough to carry with us. We were also seriously eying up some of the ceramics and art work considering how much we would regret not buying authentically from Vietnam when we get home. I know for sure that when we get our own place I will be wanting a lot of Vietnamese influences around the house because its all so beautiful. We stopped off at another Cafe to get out of the rain and had a couple of shandies. We love sitting just at the edge looking outside, it's so funny watching the street merchants trying to sell their stuff. They're so smiley and lovely but in such a bossy way! " come in now", "buy this please", "why you no come in and look??".
After that we just continued to walk, went over the Japanese bridge again and went into a few arty places. We bought a painting in the end, the cheapest we could find that was nice was £8 which set us over budget a bit considering we stopped off an hour or so later for a cocktail each and then went to get food after. The whole day has just been hours of walking around and moving from cafe to cafe! On the way from the river we bought a candle to float in it which was nice for our last night. In the restaurant later on (which was a lovely little indian place) we spotted a couple who we recognised from staying in the same hotel as us in hue. It's strange because they're not the first people, the girls we shared the train with to hue happened to be staying at the same hotel as us in hoi an, we bumped into each other when we arrived. And when we were in hue sat eating we spotted the snotty French people from our halong bay boat outside in one of the shops. When i had my hair cut in hue there was a girl having her nails done that we spotted sitting in the same restaurant as us in hoi an the other day. It's because everybody is following the same route, I guess it's just odd with there being so many places and so many people that we keep seeing people!
We got back to the hotel around 7.30 and were kindly given a spare room for the remaining 45 minutes to shower or whatever. We took a taxi at 8.30 and arrived at the station 45 minutes later ready for the train to come at 10 only to find out it was delayed by an hour. So we sat waiting, me being driven mad by the woman eating nuts REALLY loudly and ready to murder her at any moment, and Liam for not being bothered by it himself and just finding it funny that I was close to tears from being so annoyed!! We finally got onto the train, we paid less this time so the cabins weren't as good and the train smelt a bit but it was somewhere to sleep at least. We found or cabin, with 6 bunks inside and people were asleep in our numbered bunks. Thinking we might have got it wrong we got somebody who promptly moved the men out of our beds which was all a bit weird.
Once we'd tried to find places for all of our bags (Liam having to have his in his bed with him and have his feet up in the air and me with my smaller one at the bottom of the bed) we settled down straight away to go to sleep. There was hardly enough room to move around at all or sit up so there was nothing more we could have done anyway so it's a good job we were both tired. Luckily the men in the cabin were also going to sleep so we both got a good nights sleep despite the lack of space.
