The trip started with travel problems, we should've taken it as a sign that there would be more transport issues to come..! Gerard, Louise and I got to Shimonoseki smoothly enough, and got on the bus on time too. Jo and Selena met us at their stops, then the bus was off to Fukuoka. Or so we thought... We made it onto the Kammon Bridge and not much further! After about about hour (honestly we were probably only 8kms from where we left), we finally realised that we weren't going to be going anywhere fast because there had been an accident in the tunnel immediately off the bridge! We also realised that we could easily be late for our plane, so when the bus was trying to get through the Moji traffic we decided to jump bus! Yip, a group of 5 gaijin, all with big packs got off the bus in the middle of a crowded street! And we had to pay the full fare to Fukuoka even though we'd only made it across the bridge! So then we had to walk to Moji Station, train to Kokura Station, get the shinkansen to Hakata, then subway to Fukuoka Domestic Airport, finally bussing to the International Terminal! Phew! We got there a little late, but luckily we made the plane, which I'm sure we wouldn't have if we'd stayed on the bus!

Korea Airport is cool! They have KFC, Burger King, and Subway!! The cash registers even show prices in won, yen and US dollars, how's that for thinking! But what's a group of deprived gaijin to do in such a situation..! There was talk of getting all of the above, but I ended up just getting BK and taking the anticipation of my return trip with me to Vietnam!

So the 5 of us arrived in Hanoi, and went outside for a taxi. Of course we were ripped off by some Airport taxi man who shuffled you along into one of his companies taxis! We cruised into the city without having a clue if we were even heading the right way! The roads were rough and we seemed to go off road to get to the next road! One would expect lots of high buildings and bright lights coming into a city, a capital city at that! But no...Hanoi was really dark, and the highest buildings we saw coming from the airport were narrow, 3-storey houses with French style facade and painting on the front and grey concrete on the sides!

We arrived at the hotel to be met by Neal, who arrived the day before. Went for a wander to try and get a beer, but nowhere to be found (it was only 1am too..!), so it was off to bed. Day One over.