We had a good journey from Guilin to Hanoi and were very relieved that our train tickets (that looked nothing like a train ticket and was, strangely, in Russian!) turned out to be real. We shared our cabin with a really interesting guy who had been working as a cameraman in the desert North of Beijing and in Shanghai filming 'The Mummy III'. We passed a very pleasant evening looking at his photo's of Jet Li - pretty cool!

We went through the Chinese border at 1.30am and the rather lovely Chinese border guards came and did passport control at our bedside, which was quite thoughtful of them! The Vietnamese border guards were not quite so good! At 3am we got off the train to queue up at various different windows for a variety of stamps, tickets and checks. The strangest one being a health check which consisted of having a thermometer, very briefly, put quite close to our ears!

We woke up to Hanoi. If there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing, there must be 70 billion motorbikes in Hanoi! It's crazy - and crossing the road is a cross between a game of tag and a work of art! We're getting better at it!

We stayed in the Old Quarter, where we found ourselves spending hours in cafe's staring out of the window for hours at a time. Our current favourite past time is 'how much can you get on your bike' - a family of 4 is nothing! Our favourite one so far is two people and a (live, but restrained) cow!

Whilst in Hanoi we went to the Museum of Ethnology, where the most interesting thing was watching the all the newly married couples having their wedding photographs taken in the gardens (we counted 13 couples) and girls, there were some absolute shockers of some dresses! We've, again, spent quite a lot of time eating - french bread being a particular treat after the sweet rubbish that passes for a loaf in China!

And then . . .

One of the best things we've done. We went to Ha Long Bay.

We were horrified when we got to the tourist trap that is Ha Long City Harbour. Boats were moored, at least, 5 deep and we had visions of trailing a fleet of boats all day. But, yet again, we struck gold! Our guide whisked us away from the chaos and we didn't see another boat all day. We had an amazing day kayaking in stunning scenery, and swimming from the boat. Jumping off the top seemed a good idea until you'd actually lept off! Gemma shocked herself so much she forgot to close her mouth and filled her head with so much water it trickled out for the next 3 hours!

The next day we were doubly lucky in that the 5 other people on the boat went back to Hanoi and we had the entire boat, and crew, to ourselves! We went trekking in the national park where the terrain became slightly more challenging after we were told not to touch anything green as it might be a snake . . . it's quite difficult climbing up the side of a rock with your hands in your pockets! We did more swimming and spent the afternoon kayaking through tunnels and discovering idyllic coves and beaches - completely alone. It was perfect.

We spent that night on Cat Ba Island before heading back to Ha Long City and then back to Hanoi. Ha Long Bay is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful places we've ever been. It was idyllic, we gorged ourselves on fresh seafood and contemplated how much you'd have to spend to get a really good yacht and crew (because you wouldn't want to do any of the actual work yourself!) . . . . . . . !