Well an eventful two days in Halong Bay were had - off to a bad start when the bus due at 7.30am arrived at 8.40. Great. The little man who picked me up failed to apologise for his timing, and didn't even hold the door as I struggled with my bags. I sat down on one of the aisle seats on an already packed bus, and was promptly told to 'move back, more people', to which I replied I would when the bus wasn't moving around and I could stand without instantly falling over. He didn't understand this,, and shouted at me. I ignored him until we stopped and I moved back, forcing a 6'4" Aussie bloke to the back of the bus where he became as cramped as I now was. To my absolute joy, and everyone else on the bus' I assume, we were told the bus trip would last three hours.

After a stop at a carefully positioned snack and souvenir shop we arrived in Halong Bay at noon, it was grey, raining, and quite chilly as we walked from one boat to another, and then to another as little Hitler struggled to pick the right one for our trip. The rain just added a blissful feeling to the search. Not feeling too amused anyway, we weren't too happy to hand over our passports to Hitler and his friend Rasputin, but we were assured they'd be 'held safely by the Captain.' Ironically our boat was called the 'Halong Bay Party Boat'.

We sailed over to the famous Halong Bay rocks, trying to get a few pictures inbetween the many showers that seemed to be following us, before heading to the caves for an informative guide. Hitler decided not to tell us about the history of the caves, but about how they looked like 'lions, elephants' and 'a woman riding a horse'. Brilliant. Fed up with the influx of information we headed back to the boat, where we waited for the final five to turn up - it turned out they'd found another cave and gone back there, not realising we were all heading back. Hitler and his new Stalin friend, our Captain apparently, had gone looking for them, and on their return showed us some new Vietnamese language as they shouted obsecenties. A great start as we saw another argument erupt between Stalin and one of the French blokes who'd walked on midway through drinking his beer: Stalin wanted him to pay the 10,000VND fee for bringing alcohol on board, but Frenchy was adamant he didn't have to pay as he'd been drinking it anyway and just happened to walk on board with it. More entertainment for us as we sat in the dining room. This trip was totally worth paying forty-five dollars for.

As we sailed into a fishing village we were offered an optional boat tour for 60,000VND, a tour that we were all fairly certain was marked as included in our eitineraries. Cue more arguing. The Aussie blokes provided some comic relief as they decided to blow-up their dinghy to take in the water, providing tours for free, but this didn't amuse the crew who were quick to shout again, this time mentioning 'prison' and 'police will know your name' inbetween their foreign rants. Defeated, we all headed inside to get our rooms - I'd been placed with a random Mongolian girl who'd come with her sister and brother-in-law, and nephew, but the brother wasn't happy and wanted them all to sleep together. I wasn't too keen on sharing a bed with someone I didn't know, and who I'm pretty sure was only sixteen, so I arranged to swap for two single beds with the Aussies, this didn't please the Mongolians, and so I was on my own. Fine by me.

We played some drinking games to pass the time, starting at 6pm. By 10pm Ring of Fire had played its course and I headed off to bed, succombing to just two Tiger beers. I was glad to get away from one of the group, a bloke from Vancouver whose first words to me were 'so they make 'em big in Dutchland (not Deutschland)', to which I responded I didn't know, but I was from England. He then dug a little deeper by saying 'Philippa, that's a strange name', before criticising my beloved Cambodia. Not the best advert for a possible move to Vancouver, but surely he's the bad example.

The next morning, after the coldest night, I was up at 6am to go kayaking, but apparently nobody else was. After standing around in the wind for half an hour I gave up and went to my room to pack up, by the time I got back we'd completely moved away from the kayaking area, so nobody had the choice of doing it anyway.

Breakfast, which was four slices of bread with slabs of butter, was served after I'd badgered to get my passport back, they'd been holding it ransom until I paid my bar bill of a measly five dollars. Little Hitler then started pushing me to change boats as our new boat oulled up beside us, a move which saw him get a stern look a push back whenever he went near me. I really wasn't in the mood for more pushy little men, especially given how cold it was in the wind.

When we got to the other boat it appeared we'd had the life of Riley in comparison to them; two of the girls had had their rooms broken into by staff as they ate their dinner, having 2,000,000VND stolen. We also learnt that their tour guide, Rasputin from earlier, had been arguing all night over alcohol, even throwing one of the group's bottles into the water. Whilst we were there we heard him shout 'I'll make you disappear' to one of the group. We chatted to a couple of English girls who were on their way home after working in Australia for a year to bide the time back to shore, but the Canadian stepped in to annoy us again, this time attacking Cambodia for being too desperate, and then telling us about a saint to was canonised for being the first person to read in his head. I've Googled this and can confirm he was talking rubbish.

I can only hope the Sapa tour is better.

Finally reaching dry land at noon we ran to the nearest cafe, next door to the one the guides recommended because their friends owned it. We had Pho and coffee, which certainly warmed us up, especially the addition of the ant I fished out of my mouth after my final swig of coffee. To top off the feeling that the locals didn't like us a girl got sold a mouldy Snickers bar that had gone off in September, which wasn't exchanged or even glanced at when brought to the seller's attention. Good customer service on every front. We got back on the bus, all twenty of us on the sixteen seater, and listened to Rasputin as he said 'leave your bag on the side, we'll get it later,' to which she thankfully refused and shoved her bag on with her.

After fours hours sat on the wheel-arch I was dropped off on the wrong side of the lake, as 'it [was] rush hour' and they couldn't go to each hotel. I walked along the river through the non-existent rush hour to the Kangaroo Cafe for a fresh burger and chunky chips to finish off a pretty poor two days. Only two hours to kill until the next trip - surely it can't get worse.