Halong Bay is seen as one of the wonders of the world, it has more then 2000 karst islands rising from emerald waters and is designated a world heritage site. Our bus to "Halong City" dropped us off on the side of the highway where about 5 men with motorbikes were eagerly waiting and promptly drove off. We are getting used to these "tourist traps" now so after a bit of a Gemma tantrum we finally agreed to get on the back of a bike each and they took us straight...

The 12 hour bus journey to Hanoi was probably the most uncomfortable we have had so far. They really like to make sure they are getting as much money as possible on these journeys which means every bus is filled to the rafters with not just people but rice, chickens and anything else you could possibly think of meaning leg room is hard to come by! However, we had something new to look at every 10 minutes as we drove through the mountains and Matt enjoyed trying s...

We got up at 5am to get to the riverbank in Muang Khua and catch a little fishing boat over to the other side where the bus would be leaving at 7. When we left the guesthouse it was still dark, we found a place to sit at the riverbank. As soon as it was light enough we realised that the river had risen quite considerably over night, so much so that an entire island where some of the local boats moor had entirely disappeared! A nice local who could speak broken...