Helloooooo. Back again, as promised, and as fully functional as I ever have been. (Admittedly, this doesn't say much). The boat trip from Halong Bay, from which I returned yesterday, was pretty awesome - it really is a beautiful part of the world, and not even the repeated (please cover your eyes) screw-ups, made by the tour company I was with, could detract from the raw beauty of the towering rock formations that shot out of the sea with the complete disregard for symmetry that only Nature can achieve so masterfully. The islands are of every conceivable shape and size, and the early evening mists that we sailed through lent them an eerie quality that contrasted starkly with the following day's bright sunshine when we kayaked among them. I, along with a twosome from France, a threesome from Spain, another from Switzerland and another from India, spent the first night in a hotel on Catba island, and then trekked the following day through Catba's national park, which was teeming with poisonous snakes and spiders, and every conceivable plant from peanut shrubs (of the KP roasted, salted variety), to mango trees, to pineapple and sweet potato plants. (I say it was 'teeming' with poisonous s's, we actually only saw one of each. And I didn't even see the snake. But it's not quite as exciting if you say it like that). We eventually went to the boat on which we were to spend the night, meeting up with a couple of Israelis, a Swede and an American of Cuban descent (can't be too many of those about). This was to be the party night, and a few bottles of the quite repulsive, yet exceedingly cheap, rice vodka later, atop our wooden vessel, we were dropping off one by one (thankfully just to sleep, not off the boat). Two hours later it was time to be up for the journey back to the mainland, stopping off at the site of IndoChina's filming (never actually seen or heard of this, but apparently it's a famous film). Last night was spent principally at one of the many 'bia hoi' stalls, supping the wonderfully cheap (down to 2000 dong a glass at this one - 30,000 dong to the pound) draught beer, as we sat on the child-sized red and blue plastic chairs that all of the road-side stalls seem to favour here in 'Nam. It was also the beginning of a festival of some kind, that had something to do with the full moon - enquiries as to what all the song and dance was about were met with confused and confuddled looks before the overjoyed local got back to the celebrations. The highlight was definitely watching a group of kids dancing manically around on the pavement to the sound of their beating drums, sporting garish face masks and seemingly possessed by the spirits - I swear I've never seen anybody move quite that way, not even at the end of a Drum'n'Bass evening in the Cooler at the Student's Union bar at Warwick. I hope the kid got his body back before the night was over. Today has been spent mostly relaxing some more after the highly energetic last few days on the sun beds, and trying to sort myself out for the flight to Bangkok tomorrow. That's right, coup central it is, possibly for just over a week if I don't make it to a Thai beach somewhere. I'll write again from Bangkok... (I must just make a public apology to Deborah for missing her birthday. I'll bring you back a bull-frog from Kho San road to make up for it...I'm sure Graham will love making some noise with that...mwahahaha). Love to all, David. xxx