Well greetings from Hanoi everyone!!!

Since Hue we have been busy with not much time for sitting at the internet, we first went to Nimh Binh which is like Halong Bay but with the rocks and islands rising up from lakes in the rice fields, was absolutely beautiful and so peaceful...well on the way in it was, on the way out there were 3ooo japanese tourists on their way in so not so peaceful!

We hired some motorbikes to get to them, not sure the guy was convinced of our skills to start with, he looked quite dubious, we had some blagging to do as i had never ridden one with gears and elliot had never ridden at all!!! some quick learning and a few laps though and he let us go, although i think he was a little worried! Was so fun to ride round though at our own pace and most of it was country roads so not too hair raising. We were rowed round the lakes and through caves - pics will come i promise but not fast enough to upload as yet. We then went to Hoa Lu, where there is a temple up on the top of a mountain (officially i think it is a hill but was pretty damn big) climbed 285 steps to the top where there was a little temple. A little vietnamese girl had followed us and beckoned for us to follow her further, looked like something out of Indiana Jones but we climbed up some jagged rocks and had amazing views over the countryside. Was well worth the effort even if the route down was crawling with red ants, is not easy to avoid and climb oner the rocks at the same time!!! Was gorgeous though and the girl was lovely, she posed for pictures with the woman from the temple and they fanned us and offered drinks - i must have looked pretty hot, sweating buckets! All in all was such a good day, even when i burned my leg on the exhaust pipe (not too bad is only small) did not put a dampner on it, and after helping the guy in the hotel to write an English reply to a letter (we tried to charge but no joy!!!) we got the bus to Hanoi.

We have not seen much of Hanoi yet as booked a tour to Halong Bay for 3 days, very nice, stunning scenery, caves, night on a boat and bit of trekking in a national park, all very relaxing. The group we were with all good fun and we bemused the vietnamese on the boat by playing s***head, they all got out their phones to take photos!! The caves were huge and stunning, you can't take photos to show how massive they are, all lit up with different coloured lighting which made for a surreal, if not so natural effect.

Got back to Hanoi yesterday and met up with Jo from Bristol and the group from the boat, the nightlfe in Hanoi doesn't really get going till the weekend but we had cocktails and cake-good combination!!! i have been craving some desert. Elliot is still sleeping this morning so i guess he had a good night, i came home earlier, they must have found some night life somewhere the fun police hadn't got to! Really they go round in trucks to shut places down at about 11.