Friday 16th November

So we arrived in Hanoi & a driver was stood waiting with a name sign to collect us & take us to our hotel. The sign read: 'Matt & Brett Foreva.' See Brett decided to tell the guy his surname was Foreva & Suzanne had no idea we had arranged this so it was priceless to see her reaction when she stepped off the bus. Brett has a bit of history with bogus names, he was in 2 Australian newspaper articles under the name Brett Mcoxlarg!

So after 14 hours on a bus, 15 minutes in a taxi during rush hour in the capital city, it was surely time to rest up. The hotel manager had other ideas. Our rooms wouldn't be ready for another hour so he put his salesman hat on & shoved brochures for boat cruises around Ha Long Bay, our next destination. He was a proper double glazing style salesman, 'ring the boss to see what the best best price is' type. Long story short, we agreed on the Luxury Imperial Cruise for $145 each including transfers, all meals, one night on the boat & a night in a luxury sea view bungalow on Cat Ba Island. It looked & sounded like paradise.

In the afternoon we took a short walking tour of the city to get our bearings, it didn't work. Every street is identical & we ended up going in circles & checking the map at every street corner like proper tourists! For dinner the 4 of us headed to the Water Puppet Theatre but they were sold out for the night so we sat in a roof top bar overlooking the lake & city, checked out the night market, grabbed a bite to eat & off to bed early as we were leaving for Ha Long Bay early the following day.

Check out Halong Bay for the next one...