We were picked up from the hostel early that morning to be taken to Halong Bay. We got the coach across to Halong City where we boarded our boat which we would be staying on for the night. We were lucky to have a really good group of people on board the boat from Australia and Europe. That afternoon we cruised around Halong Bay, whilst having an opportunity to do our first bit of real sunbathing! Our first stop on the cruise gave us an chance to go kayaking in ...

The border crossing was a fairly easy one, we had heard lots of horror stories about being charged for medical checks and other bribes but saw no problems. The bus took us the whole day so we only arrived into Hanoi in the evening. The bus dropped us off in the middle of no-where again. This time we had planned to be more prepared and drew a map of where we should be dropped off and where the hostel was. That was pointless. So we wandered around the streets ...