GOOOD afternoon Viiieeetnaaaaaaaam.

Well we have just been to possibly the most amazing part of Vietnam so far, and dare I say it possibly the best part of our travels, Halong Bay, a world heritage site. We spent one night on a Junk (chinese pirate ship on blog picture) that I kept calling a Trunk and looking like a fool in the process, however Halong Bay was just simple amazing. But before Halong we had afew days in Han Oi, Vietnams capital.

We arrived in to Han Oi safe and sound from a rainy Hue on an epic 14 hour bumpy night bus, once again with Joe and Rachel travelling with us we manged to take the back row of the sleeping bus, with seats that recline in to beds. Arriving at 6.30am we set abouty finding some accomodation, easier said than done when every hotel was twice as much as we were normally use to paying in Vietnam. Reluctantly we went with one of the touts that harrassed us around the city and went with his hotel advice, simply as the price was within budget. As was the rooms and beds were comfortable, however the staff are pretty usless, messing up our laundry by simply rinsing under the tap (that was a fun one to argue) and they will nod at anything thing, as Joe says they are all t*** and teeth', but we didn't pay for the washing in the end.

After we settled in to our rooms we headed straight out to see the city, and its absolutley mental, there are about 2million mopeds and no one can drive at all, crossing the street is like virtual suicide, but Amy and I have got use to letting Rachel and Joe face the traffic so they can take the brunt of any collision!! Rachel and Joe purchased a laptop and we all agreed Han Oi was great, however it is so hard to find a decent place to eat, however we found one in the end, needless to say we found our local watering hole very easily. A street vendor with tiny plastic chairs to sit on, selling a glass of beer for 15p, and it tastes great.

The other dangerous task in hand was to book the Halong bnay trip, we heard there were hundreds of boats to choose from and with this there were thousands of agents to pick from. So with our best bartering skills we played a couple of agents off against each other, ironically fending with the aptly named 'Black Pearl' (from Pirates of the Caribean if you didn't get the connection) we paid 45 dollars each and started praying it really was as the agent decribed. All was not good the morning the bus was supposeto turn up, as it didn't turn up at all, so we were all bungled in to the back of taxi to the bus where it was waiting for us................on the motorway!! We were all secretly hoping this wasn't a sign of things to come, and thankfully it certainly wasn't.

The boat had excellent bedrooms, amazing food (all free) and expensive booze, fortunately being travellers on a budget we took our own stash and had to secretly drink it when we found out there was a corkage fee. As for Halong Bay, it was just simply incredible seeing these beautiful limestone island come out of the ocean, and set in between them the sea was like a mill pond. We managed to see some caves and go kayaking around a couple of islands, with some relaxing on the way back to Halong city today. What mad ethe trip all the much sweeter was that everyone else paid 90 dollars EACH!! So a great deal anmd perfect trip indeed.

We have literally got back to the same hotel, although no washing will be handed in.

We have two more days in Han Oi before we get an early flight to Bangkok on the 21st.

Until next time Amigos, Take Care