So after a short 1hr 30mn flight we were in Hanoi.

We headed for the minivans, as they're much cheaper than getting a taxi, and had to wait for the bus to be filled to maximum capacity bfore finially leaving. About an hour later we arrived at our hostel.

After dragging out bags to the top floor (about 5 maybe more flights of stairs up) we had a dorm of 5 to ourselfs.

We set out walking around the city. The roads are even crazier here than Bangkok, motorbikes just everywhere and beeping constantly when they come to a junction when they overtake someone, just beeping whenever really.

Walked around the lake and had a dodgy guy grab my leg,weird. The lake itself was very pretty, and there seemed to be lots of brides around, not sure if it was for a wedding or just for a photo shoot of some kind.

After searching for somewhere to book our Halong Bay trip we ended up booking with the resturant where we had lunch, and out first experience of Pho Bo. A noodle soup dish with beef, very nice, and most importantly cheap!

Afew streets were set up as a market for selling fresh fish, so fresh they were still alive in tubs of water. The lady grabbed one killed it and descaled it and handed it over to her customer, with the blood running through the gutters, nice. Also, along these small market streets motorbikes came down still, even though there was only enough room for one person at a time, maddness.

That night we went out and had a few jugs at a bar, strong but tasty. We got talking to some locals who had moved out here from England and Denmark, they reccommended a few things for us to do the next day.

As the weather was hot we headed for the water park the next day. We were one of about 5 westerners there, and we received many stares and peoply pointing and often laughing at us. The sun hadheaated up and it was nice to be able to cool down in the water.

The next day we were up early to be picked up for our Halong Bay trip. Thr journey took about 3 hours and was in an A/C minivan so it was fine. Listened to some stupid rahs talk about glasses, annoying idiots.

When we arrived our passports were taken off us for 'security and insurance' reasons, they man then crossed the road and handed them to some dodgy guy, great. We did get them back at the end of the trip thankfully. We got on our boat to have lunch and ot chatting to a group of girls who had met whilst travelling. The stories they told made me jealous of all the things they had to say, but also excited at the thought of all that to come.

A tour of Halong Bay, a visit to the 'Amzing cave' then kayacking in the evening. Dinner was served on the boat and later we stayed up playing cards and chatting with the girls. Didn't even realise we were sleeping on a boat it was so still.

The next morning we had breakfast on the boat and the girls left for another boat as they were doing a longer trip. We cruised slowly back to the port. We were then taken for our lunch, which was just s*** really, uncooked egg crappy spring rolls, nothing good, i actually left almost all of mine, so it must have been bad.

Our guide said we had to wait for our minibus to be fixed, but we thinkk it was cuz he was still eating and chatting to friends. But we managed to get the last 2 seats on another bus back home.

We went out for dinner where we booked the trip as we had been oferred a free meal of 4 dishes each as a thankyou for booking with him. A final walk around the town and our last night in Hanoi.