Hi all Ok, so another early morning start (7 am), a quick breakfast and the 3 of us were loaded onto a minibus for the jouney to Halong Bay. Thankfully, everyone wanted to go there, so we made the journey in normal time, with our guide wittering on about what we were going to be doing. This guy thought he was on some kind of Disney tour. Pseudo-american cliches pouring out of his big cheesy grin. I liked him. A lot. Just for his poor misplaced enthusiasm. The girls had decided that they were only going to go for a two day trip, whilst me and Mand went for three. The third day was my birthday, so it left the pair of us alone to do some romantic stuff before returning to Hanoi for the inevitable alco fest. Ok, so after a brief rest stop we arrived at the jetties and were unloaded into blazing sunshine. This place was gorgeous. Boats everywhere (some with their sails up), hustle and bustle of people loading and unloading and us just sitting watching it all happen. Sweet. After 10 minutes or so, we're directed to our boat. Now some of the boats we'd seeen were beautiful. Two or three sundecks, big comfortable looking seats and tables inside. Some we'd seen were pretty grotty. Half a sundeck and wooden benches inside. So we were feeling a slight trepidation as we headed along to our jetty. It turned out to be unfounded. Ours was magnificent. Only one sundeck, but it ran the full length of the ship, and had plenty of loungers and deckchairs. Woo hoo! The inside was furnished with big tables and comfy benches, with big windows down the side. Sweet! On we got, dumped our stuff at a table and headed straight upstairs to begin our tanning session, and watch as we pulled majestically away out into the beautiful blue waters of Halong Bay. The journey was amazing. Gliding along in baking hot sunshine, the breeeze just enough to take away the stifling feeling, blue water, blue skies with hardly a cloud in, and these huge limestone cliffs rising up out of the sea. Just the change of pace we needed after the previous couple of days walking and trying to look cultural. Obviously we all got sunburnt within about an hour. Even Kimbers who had resolutely denied she ever burnt. Oops. But hey, that wasn't going to stop us, so we just greased ourselves up with lotion and sweated our way through it. Whilst on board, we got chatting to a guy called Damien (I think) who was Australian and had just cycled to Vietnam from Laos. He'd actually taken pretty much the same route we had, but by pushbike. Mountains and all. Loon. But he did have extensive knowledge of the dangerous wildlife in Oz, and set about scaring me s***less with great abandon. I'd just read Bill Bryson's 'Down Under', and figured that some of it at least must have been exaggerated. Apparently not. I'm thinking about skipping straight to New Zealand. Anyhoo, after a few hours, it was time for our first stop. Hang Sung Sot. This is a cave. Maybe cavern is a better word. Maybe f***in huge great cavern is an even better description. Loads of stalagmites/stalagtites, most of which were lit by red, blue, green, or purple lights. Some looked remarkably like things. One looks amazingly like a huge penis. Or a finger. But in my eyes there was only one winner in that debate. There was also one that looked like a Buddha (kinda), Mand and kimbers discovered another that looked exactly like an angel, and there was one that definitely looked like a huge dragon. Our guide by this time had had enough and f***ed off on walkabout, rather than show us round the cave like he was supposed to. To be fair he attempted to in the first part of the cave, but gave up when he realised we were probably the only 4 people actually listening to him. I just don't understand this rudeness people have. He's there explaining about how the cave was formed, what things have happened in it, telling us a few legends, and people are talking over him, wandering off and generally ignoring the poor sod. Anyway, he obviously got a bit pissed off himself, and body swerved our entire group for the rest of the cave. Luckily, ther was another tour group a bit in front of us, so we ocassionally got to eavesdrop on what their guide was saying, and the rest of it we made up. We spent a good three quarters of an hour playing the 'what can you see' game. I eventually began to fear for the girls' sanity as they produced a range of increasingly bizarre things they could make out in the rock. 'A witch with two heads on a broomstick, with a baby with really long frogs legs on her lap.' 'Hmmmm. Possibly....' I replied as I sidled gently away. No sudden moves. And take away anything sharp. Eventually, we emerged back into the sunlight and walked back to the boat. On the way we saw an American couple that we recognised. It was the family from the previous evening, who'd so spectacularly rowed in the queue for the water puppets. They deliberately didn't see us when we walked towards them, and a brief moment of clarity told me that it really probably wasn't the done thing to go ask him what he'd said. And for once I listened to myself. I'd still dearly love to know though, and it would've been funny as f*** to ask him. Ah well. Back on the boat and it was lunch time. The food was nothing short of fantabulous. Seafood noodles, deep fried prawns, stir fried vegetables, stir fried tofu, a couple of other dishes that I can't quite remember (one of which I think was more seafood), spring rolls and of course, sticky rice. Fruit salad to follow. It was delicious, and it was with great sorrow that I finished eating and headed back up top for more sunbathing. A couple of hours later and we stopped off for some swimming. Well Mand and Kimbers did. Me and Laura sat back, soaked up the rays and quietly read our books. Jesus. How old am I? Mand and Kimbers didn't hesitate, and before you could say what the fook, they were perched on the edge of the railings on the sun deck, and leaping the 20 or so feet down into the clear blue water. A few of the others on the boat joined in and a couple of french guys really took to it, taking run ups and somersaulting over the railings. Double somersaults at that. Eventually one of them misjudged it and belly flopped massively. A small smile played across my lips. I f***in hate the French :o) Next we headed to our mooring spot on Cat Ba National Park, where we would then spend the night on the boat. Unfortunately, after a row between our crew and the port authorities, they refused to let us dock. Bad news for Damien and a couple of others who were supposed to be getting off there for a few days trekking (or in his case cycling). We turned round and headed back out, with dusk fast approaching. About half an hour later, we hooked up with another boat (who presumably had a better relationship with the port authorities than our boys) and the Cat Ba people were moved across onto their boat. At least we guessed that's what happened. Either way, Damien didn't re-appear this time so let's hope so. We sailed for another hour or so, with the sun going down behind the limestone cliffs, and the moon rising and a deep tranquility settled over everyone. By now our rooms on board were ready and we all headed down for showers and in no time at all it was dinner time. This meal was even better than the first, although was along the same lines. After dinner, a few games of cards and a few beers and we decided to call it a night. We had intended to get smashed and maybe crash out on the sundeck so we could sleep under a starry blanket and wake up with the sunrise. But we decided against it, mainly cos everyone was too tired to get drunk. But at least we had a choice. One couple had a room directly over the engines. Every time the diesel smoke poured out, it came straight back in through there window. Obviously they weren't overly impressed at the thought of never waking up again and asked for another room. There wasn't one. They woke up our second guide to complain, but he turned over, snarled 'No air con only fan' (nobody really understood quite what that had to do with it) and went straight back to sleep. The guy and his wife eventually settled on our idea and moved all their bedding upstairs. The next day they said they were glad they did, because it was as gorgeous as we thought it would be. b******s. Next morning saw us up at a ridiculously early hour 'You must be quick, everyone is waiting for you' to eat a nice breakfast. Laura and Kimbers were heading back to Halong Bay, then Hanoi, while me and Mand were headed to Cat Ba Island for some trekking and sun bathing. We changed boats and before we knew it we there. Now this turned out to be not so much trekking as mountain climbing. An Aussie guy in our hotel had told us before we left to wear trainers cos it was quite hard going. Understatement of the year. He should have advised ropes crampons and harnesses as well. We lost two middle aged french women after the frist 30 metres or so. One of them had flu and had decided to 'give it a go' anyway. Yeah, nice one. Me and Mand ambled along behind them, comfortable at the slow pace. Then the woman virtually collapsed and Mand was off running(!) to catch up with the others to tell our guide. He came back and the women decided quite rightly to go back down and wait for us. The trek took about three hours in all, and most of it was climbing. I'm not exaggerating in the slightest. Some of the others were wearing flip flops and they had to take them off and climb bear foot. I've never felt more like a mountain goat in my life. I have never ever swetaed so much in my life either. I could wring my t-shirt out. Literally. It looked like it had just come out of the washing machine. This both delighted and revolted everybody in the group when i demonstrated for them. Sweet. But boy was it worth it. The views were nothing short of spectacular, as was the sense of real achievement among us as we all made it back unscathed. We got back to our hotel and had another delicious seafood based lunch, the same amount as before, but only two of us eating it. Beautiful. We were going to head for the beach, but it looked like rain was coming (it did) so we went out and had a couple of beers, and when the rain stopped we bimbled around the shops and meandered around the town generally. In theory we were looking for a birthday present for me, but in practice Mand bought just about everything she looked at. For herself. No change there then. Most of it was pearls. They have a number of pearl farms there, and some of the jewellery is simply stunning. And cheap as chips. Either way, it was a really good day, what with nothing to do, and just the two of us strolling around hand in hand. We ended up back in the same bar and decided that a game of pool would finish us off nicely before we got back to the hotel at the appointed tme for dinner. Mand beat me 3 - 0. Yes, i know. What can I say. And she made me write it here. I must've been giving her a chance ;o) Dinner was a travesty. We got sat with 3 English and a French and this was where we had the conversation regarding the relevant merits of the Ho Chi Minh museum in Hanoi. This put me in a bad enough mood as it was. Then the food arrived. Now we may have been spoilt (or perhaps just lucky) but we hadn't had a truly bad meal in Vietnam thus far. Even on excursions. But this was absolute s***e. Bland. What didn't taste bland tasted pretty awful. And there was hardly any of it. And the company was pretty bad too. These people were d*** . Not just the museum thing, but they were just d*** . At one point one guy asked us where we'd been and where we were going. We told him and he looked all superior and said that he'd just done the same route only the opposite way. 'Ahh but backwards' I said with what i thought was a friendly grin. 'No, forwards. You're doing it backwards' was the curt and to be honest slightly aggressive response. Then came the museum conversation, and when the guy said that before he came away he worked in PR, I was within a hair's breadth of telling him that's where everyone with no talent ends up. But i caught a look from Mand and decided not to bother. By the way, the 'no talent? PR' thing is 100 % true. Ask anyone in business.I did score a couple of cheap points by telling him how wonderful it was to sleep on the boat, and how amazing the food had been. They'd got bumped by their tour operator and were told there was no way anyone could sleep on the boats that night (meaning the night before). And I made sure he knew we'd paid a fair bit less than they had. Either way this d*** was ruining my night slowly but surely, so we made our excuses and left. Not that it matterd, because there wasn't enough dessert for our table anyway. Bad converstaion and bad food (and not enough of that either) make for not a happy bunny. But as we headed out into the cool evening air, my pissiness evaporated as we walked amongst the traders, hawkers and tourists, Mandy stopping to quietly add to her ever growing jewellery collection. She even haggled a 10 year old girl into giving us a reasonabl price. I was so proud :o) After a quiet couple of drinks we went back to our hotel and slipped into a nice cosy slumber. Tomorrow was my birthday. Take care all xxxxxxxxxxxxxx