Hello everyone, once again thanks for the messages on the site, too many to respond to, but keep them coming - they are providing great entertainment not only for us, but also for big Kev Howarth who tunes in first to the messages as they're "often bloody funny", before he actually reads the blog. Cheers pops!

Anyway, after Nicola's rather less than detailed and biased opinion of Hanoi (I mean she was attacked rather viciously by a mean Hanio pavement after all - damn that city!!!) we waved goodbye to the historic Lennin/Mao/Stalin'esque Ba Dinh Square and the morning and evening political messages being played over the city's widespread tannoy system and set off to the spectacular world heritage site of Halong Bay.

As it was considerably cheaper to do so rather than go it alone, we decided to join the many hundreds of other tour parties for our three day trip sailing around the evocatively craggy limestone outcrops which dominate the coastline, some three hours drive east of Hanoi.

We hadn't anticipated how many tourists there would be however; there were literally thousands of white people cramming onto up to 60 boats at Halong City harbour. Nevertheless we jumped on our 'junk' and set sail with around 12 other people.

As we approached the stunning outcrops, our first stop was a blummin impressive cave system full of stalagtites/stalagmites which were rather impressively illuminated. Our guide decided to show us the shadows on the walls which were named 'the lady' or 'the dragon' by their appearance - however, when I decided to announce my penchant for observation of the obvious by saying "is that the thoroughbred horse" to what amounted to a 16 foot replica of Red Rum's baby making tackle, it fell on deaf ears and we were hurried out of the cave complex. Still a good experience.

At this point morale was high until we became victims of our tour company's woefully inadequate organization, as we were then transferred from boat to boat (along with countless others it has to be said), usually after we had made the effort getting to know new people each time we landed on a new boat. Little Belle was entering 'hissy fit' range!

So after about two hours of musical boats, we finally set sail on our journey to Cat Ba island which has to be said was a stunning journey through fjord like scenery. The silver lining to the waiting around was that this journey took place as the sun set which was rather pleasant indeed.

Cat Ba island itself hasn't the greatest amount to do, so we, and our group, got terribly terribly drunk having copious amounts to drink on the pub crawl which only consisted of two bars!! Morale at this point was as you can imagine sky high again.

Day two started with the obligatory omelet and toast and nice serving of Lipton's English tea, followed by a trek up a bloody steep hill. Now avid readers of the blog may remember the little person declaring that she was never doing a trek again. So although the trek was easy in comparison to what we're encountered before, and with the reward of some great views at the summit, the 'stroll' was given a slice of humor due to the silence being broken every five minutes by her loudly muttering obscenities about trekking and all those who like a good 'tramp' (I know youngsters are reading this blog, so I won't repeat the new language the little dude has learned - all I will say is that you can research such language at Holker Street on a Saturday afternoon or by hanging around with the Corkers at Vickers!)

The afternoon of day two saw us getting some more R&R (as if we need R&R - you poor sods at home are probably having your morning brew at work with still three days to go to the weekend as you're reading this) by going to the beach and playing football.

As the sun was going down we got back on the boat, did a little bit of kayaking, before settling down again to drink the contents of the boat dry, and playing cards with our pals - moral for little belle was yet again high at this point (as it worryingly is when engaging in the consumption of alcoholic beverages). So all that was left was to return to our cabin for a good nights sleep…..

……the good nights sleep lasted around 45 minutes before I woke to some scratching on my thigh. I swatted whatever it was only to catch a glimpse in the moonlight that it was the size of Jamie Atherton's ego. When switching on the light, we found two cockroaches that were around 8cms in length (no kidding fans!) - well little belle's new found language had returned with vengeance! The result was that we spent the rest of the night sleeping under the stars on deck - which was actually really cool [when the disco boat decided to play it's slow last number that is].

Day three was another jaunt around the coast before returning us back to shore, and then a bus back to Hanoi. Very entertaining few days all round!Next we set off towards the former border with South Vietnam, and the sights of the war……..god it's exciting!……

Laters.