We had a great trip in Halong bay - mostly due to the great company in our party. 4 a typical 20' something Irish guys on their way to Brisbane to work for a year, Indiana Jones and his wife (Belgium archaeologist), Citron car dealer from Somerset (Tony), 2 ladies from Hong Kong, 2 lively Argentinian students and us. Thien our guide was somewhat typical of vietnamese that we've experienced - on the surface polite and nice, but when it gets down to it somewhat bored and intolerant of tourists.

The food was very good, weather ok, activities just about came off - with no help from Thien. We cycled - with the kids on the back sitting on padded racks, tony helped out. Canoed - with ropey lifevests - LM and I sat on ours to keep our bums dry. Monkey Island where Thien swore that there would be no monkeys and as we approached siad we would have to wade to shore, but we still wanted to go - as we got closer, he changed it to swimming ashore, but we still wanted to go. When we got there the boat just got close enough to see the monkeys swinging around.

The stop over at Cat Ba Island was funny as half the party got dropped at one hotel and half at another, each intered to know whose was the better hotel. Thiens comment was you get what you pay for, but having compared notes with most people we know that there was barely a few dollars in it. Turned out we had the better hotel - with a full breakfast buffet compared with a few slices of bread and lots of negotiation to get a cup of tea.

The ladies from HK took me up to the posh posh hotel for a massage in the evening which was the best massaged I've had so far, until I got the same sob story as in Thailand from the girl about her mother and father - drunks and absent!

Kids were good as playing cards has become a main activity now - even LM is playing 21 and hearts with us. FT cannot play without crying and its becoming a bit of a joke now - even though she is getting it under control - we still break her!

Thinking a lot about being back home - where we'll live, school, work etc. Its been so good to be together all this time - it will be strange when we arrive back.