So these are the last blogs I wrote while in Vietnam with i-to-i last year...

Koto, Temple of Lit and Bia Hoi Corner
Thursday, 21 May 2009
On Tuesday I had plans to do some touristy things after work, so I had my camera with me and decided to take the opportunity to take some photos of the kids. They loved it - crowding round to look and laughing everytime a picture of them appeared! Damien and Aiden were the worst posers, I've got some really good pictures :) After I finished work I had lunch at Koto which is a restaurant founded by Vietnam's answer to Jamie Oliver - it's staffed entirely by street and disadvantaged kids and all the profits go back into training them. It was great and the food was lovely. After that I headed to the Temple of Literature, which had some lovely buildings, temples and courtyards. Then, because I was close, I went to the Army Museum which turned out to be a bad plan as it made me angry and tired!
Yesterday Rosie, Tom and I had planned to go out, so after burgers at the Hanoi Backpackers BBQ we headed to Bia Hoi corner for my first taste of Vietnamese home brew! Bia Hoi corner is basically a crossroad which has little bars on each corner, serving home made beer for 3000 dong a glass. That's about 12p, and the stuff is rocket fuel. None of the bars have loos so if you need to go you have to use one belonging to a local man who charges 1000 dong a piss! After that we went to a bar down the road where Tom had previously been a regular and I had a mojito which tipped me well over the edge into drunkeness! I played pool, and was even more terrible than usual, and then we headed home on motorbike taxis - me and Tom sharing the same one so that I was sitting on the back handle and now have a sore arse! I was rding along, arms outstreched Titanic style, and laughing. Crazy English girl! Work this morning was most unpleasant (although at least I went, unlike Rosie!) - I had a banging headache and Damien insisted on blowing a horn for about an hour straight, laughing everytime I mimed "shhh, my head hurts!" Taught Miles Insy Winsy Spoder, he liked that :)
Pasta and sauce for tea again tonight, no beer though!

A dead man, tattoos and snakes.
Monday, 25 May 2009
This weekend was the first that I've spent solely in Hanoi (except for my first, jet lagged one) so I was determind to "do stuff" and not waste it sitting around the house or in a bar. So, Rosie and I got up early on Saturday and went to Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, to pay our respects and gawp at a guy who's been dead for 40 years. It was very weird - he had a little smile and looked like he was asleep - I half expected him to jump up any moment and shout "surprise, I'm alive!" but he didn't. There were hardly any other westerners there which we weren't expecting, it being a touristy thing and all that. So, we were the star attraction - two (very) white girls, one of whom has very long, very blonde hair. People were openly pointing and several even asked for photos with Rosie, or both of us. Local celebrity beckons us!
After Uncle Ho and his houses, we went to Hanoi Tattoo Club for a reckie to see if it was safe, clean etc, and a few hours later emerged with tattoos of the Vietnam Star each... Rosie's on her foot and mine on my hip. Me being a big wuss I was expecting to cry, scream or similar but it hardly hurt at all and now I feel very cool and brave ;) Am not looking forward to telling my Dad though, he seriously disaproves of tattoos. Hopefully he will understand the "happy again in Vietnam" significance of the whole thing and not disown me!!
On Sunday we went on a trip to Snake Village, where you're allowed to hold the snakes and watch as they kill them for your dinner. I chickened out of doing the shot of blod complete with beating heart (was worried about choking after the incident last week!) but manned up enough for the bile shot and ate everything they put in front of me. The snake spring rolls were delicious, as was the dried skin and crushed bone combination, but the rolled skin and liver were both seriously vile and had to be washed down very quickly with my trusty Hanoi Beer! There was copious amounts of rice wine (happy water!) availiable, but the stuff is so lethal and so disgusting I only managed 3 shots before giving up and turning to beer. Rosie and Tom had no such issues though and both got horrendously pissed, Tom particularly so as he'd had a head start, drinking with "his" Sunday League football team earlier in the day! We continued the boozing on our return to the Old Quarter with our new snake friends, and returned home suitably worse for wear. Despite being the most sober of the 3 of us (by quite a way!) I was the only one not to make work this morning, thanks to a very dodgy reaction to all the snake, and a night spent on the bog.
Tomorrow I'm off to the Museum of Ethnology, probably my last touristy jaunt before the serious business of getting pissed at various leaving dos starts in earnest. Can't believe I'm on my last week. Where did all the time go?!

• Vietnam
• Hanoi