Saturday July 30th (Travelled Phonsavan, Laos - Ninh Bihn, Vietnam) At 5:15 AM, our bus left for the Vietnam border. We had to go inside the Vietnam immigration building to get cleared to enter the country. All of us already had visas, so in theory, it should have been quick. All of us with non-US passports were processed in minutes! Cleann and Jason, the 2 Americans traveling with were given a few hours of questioning before being allowed in! We then spent 8 more hours on the bus and arrived at Ninh Binh. It was late at night, we ordered some dinner and went to sleep. Sunday 31st July We were supposed to do a really cool rowboat tour on Ngo Dong River. However we were told that there was a huge typhoon heading straight for us and we would be confined to the hotel. When I woke up at 9 AM, the sky was grey and it only got darker the rest of the day. I looked up the typhoon on the one hotel computer and the typhoon stretched all the way from China to Vietnam to the ocean. The rains pelted down, the roads began to flood, but not too much. So what do you expect travelers to do if they are stuck in a hotel all day. Yes, that's right, we all prepared for the storm by going to the liquor store. The drinking started at 11 AM, but because I do not want to be labeled an alcoholic I waited until after lunch to start drinking. The light weight in me! A really fun day and think we were all passed out by 10! Monnday August 1st (Ninh Bihn - Hanoi, Vietnam) The typhoon had cleared up. Our trip to Halong Bay was going to be canceled by the storm, but luckily it was only delayed for a day. We were going to spend a day in Hanoi which is only a few hours drive from Ninh Bihn and then head to Halong Bay the next day. We arrived in Hanoi around 11:30am. I will still feeling very ropey after enjoying the local vodka the day before so took the chance for a quiet nap while the boys went for a wander about the city. In the afternoon thought would brave having a look about. Hanoi (population: 3.5 million) is the capital of Soviet Republic of Vietnam (SRV) and was also the capital of North Vietnam during the war. It is a mixture of Asia with a 19th century French influence. The streets, like most of Vietnam, are filled with motobikes in every direction. The saying is that if you were to wait for the traffic to clear before crossing the road, you would never cross. The general rule for the roads in Vietnam is that big overtakes small. Also motobikes will go around you. So every time I cross the street, there are hundreds of motobikes coming at me in every direction and my job is too just slowly walk to the other side. And thus far, I am still alive. Met up with the others later and went for a good dinner and had some drinks at the Funky Monkey bar. Tuesday August 2nd (Ha Noi - Halong Bay, Vietnam) Took a 4 hour drive to Halong Bay. In the middle of the drive, we stopped at a craft store that supported the physically handicapped. We arrived in Halong Bay in the early afternoon and boarded the boat. The boat was really nice! The bottom deck had 6-7 cabins which each had two twin beds and a shower that had warm water. The middle deck was the kitchen and the top deck was to sun tan and play on. The weather was beautiful, hot and not a cloud in the sky. And the breeze from the boat made this such an enjoyable experience. The scenary was spectacular. There were thousands of limestone peaks and islands punctuating the crystal waters. Very similar to Thailand. After a few hours, we stop at the Surprise Caves. They were some nice stalagmite and stalagtite caves, there were three of them and the surprise was that the 2nd cave was bigger than the 1st and and the 3rd was even bigger than the 2nd. Not too surprising or exciting?! So now it was back on the boat, first we had a big lunch that the crew made for us and then more relaxing, swimming and sun tanning. We swam for a few hours and others went kayaking. After dinner, we headed on top of the deck and chilled out for a few hours. Took some beautiful pictures of the breath-taking sunset and then saw the stars, even a few shooting ones! Wednesday August 3rd (Halong Bay - Ha Noi, Vietnam) Our boat was leaving to head back to shore at 6:30 AM, had some breakfast and before 8:00 AM and we were back on dry land. We took the same 4 hour trip back to Hanoi. For lunch, we stopped at the best pizza shop in Vietnam called Pepperonis and it lives up to its hype. We then went to the Revolution Museum which was two stories and dozens of rooms that contained hundreds of communist artifacts and history including speeches and newspaper headlines that chronicled the following: the beginning of the communism effort in Vietnam, the revolution against the French, the revolution against the Japanese, the revolution against the Americans. It also showed the achievements of Vietnam and the many awards and recognitions it has received since independence. We then stopped at Fannies, one of the best ice cream places in Vietnam and it was gooood. We then went to the Water Puppet show. Hanoi is the best place is Vietnam to see water puppets and this was supposedly the place to go. It only lasted an hour, but after 25 minutes I had to leave. It was a bit boring. There was no plot and it was dolls in a bunch of water going back and forth. The first act were a pair of dragons that zigzagged throught the small water stage with no words spoken and really bad music playing. This lasted 4 minutes. This was Act 1. Act 2 was the same thing, but with water buffalo. Same thing with Act 3, but with Fish. Trust me, this is something you can be sure to gain a good feeling of within the first 5 minutes. Had some French food for dinner which was followed by the best jazz club in Vietnam. Jason, Nick and I took some cyclos to the Apocalypse Now Bar. After 5-10 minutes, it became clear that the problem was that the cyclos did not know where they were going, so we got off and headed to another bar called Half Noodle, Half Man. It was really chilled, however we were the only ones there. We sat down and within 15 minutes, the place was packed with Westerners. Stayed there for a while and then headed home.