Our last week in Vietnam had its ups and downs. Although I loved Hoi An, I left in a somewhat miserable mood with a stomach bug due to a combination of bad water, bad food, dehydration, stress, lack of sleep, etc. That was only the beginning of our bad luck streak. When we arrived in Hue, I was bedridden-sick so I didn’t see one bit of the city, and after a night in what seemed like the nicest hotel, Kelsey woke up covered in bites – bed bugs. We left Hue stressed, attempting to quarantine our bags, but it only went downhill from there. Broken iPods on an 18-hour overnight bus, taxi scams, Kelsey’s lost iPhone. Luckily, this was our final stop in Vietnam and we powered on through.

We checked into our “hostel” which was more like a hotel, except for its $10/night price. Private room, fluffy pillows and duvets, HBO, free coffee, and hotel robes. We spent a lot of time in Hanoi in bed… but I don’t regret a thing about it. When we finally restored our energy, we explored the city a bit. The same day we arrived, our English friends from Mui Ne – Emily, Liv, and Dan – took a train up and we all met for dinner. We had such a great time spending our last few days with them – walking around the city lake, eating Pho, “bar hopping” around Bia Hoi Corner where you can get “bia hoi” (“fresh beer”) for 5000 dong/glass (that’s about 25 cents), and hanging out at some other local hostels where we played trivia and made some other travel friends. It was really hard to say goodbye to these guys when we left Hanoi.

Kels, Em, Dan, Liv, and me in Hanoi

On our last afternoon, Kelsey and I found a cute little coffee shop called the Note Café where the walls were covered in love notes to and from people from all over the world. We sat and drank iced lattes and doodled and wrote notes to add to the walls. I made sure I wrote one to all the people we met on this trip. They’ve all made this such a special two months, and I truly hope to see them all again!