On the morning of our trip to Halong Bay we checked out nice and early. As we paid we were told about the free breakfast that the hotel offers every morning. Not quite sure why that useful snippet of information wasn't passed on to us as we checked in, rather than when we checked out but better later than never I guess. After breakfast we were picked up and driven to Halong Bay in a minibus with 'Halong Bay Party Cruise - No Fun No Pay!' emblazoned across the side. There were 14 of us on the 'party' boat, including a couple of Aussie guys, a couple of Swiss guys and a French guy. Everyone else apart from those five (and the two of us of course) was over 40 or 50 and seemed a little confused as to why they were being shepherded onto a boat with pumping music and a flashing dance floor. As it turned out, the cruise was fairly mellow, probably because of the time of year. I bet the boats are rammed in Summer. We had our own cabin with a (sporadicly) hot shower and I've got to say it was rather nice. The food was delicious too. Jak point-blank refused to touch the squid tentacles and then ate them battered in another dish thinking that they were battered chicken rings mwahaha.

Halong Bay itself is stunning and a lot bigger than we expected. There's just under a couple of thousand karst islands rising out of the sea, some with beaches and caves. It felt a bit surreal cruising through them, like we were on the Voyage of the Dawn Treader in C.S.Lewis's fictional world. And it was quite overcast so I imagine it would be even more impressive on a clear day! We jumped into kayaks just as the first raindrops starting falling. Even though it was cold and wet we kayaked around and about a floating village for roughly an hour, pulling up to one beach to explore the caves at the back of it, and stopping to watch huge birds circle overhead and dive down to pull fish out of the water. Afterwards we trekked up the slippery side of a hill so that we could get an even better view of the Bay. Tres jolie! (I kept inflicting my very limited French on the French guy onboard and can't get out of the habit now...)

That night we had a sunset party on the boat - although obviously without an actual sunset due to the thick cloud. We ended up playing drinking games and building ever-more complicated pyramids out of the empties before calling it a night around midnight. The next day we visited 'Surprise/Amazing Cave', which we thought would be a bit naff but which was without a doubt the best, most impressive cave we have been in in all our travels. It was huge! And with gigantic stalactites, stalagmites and columns. It felt very old. Afterwards we made spring rolls, had lunch and cruised back to shore, where our minibus was waiting to take us back to Hanoi.

We ate that night in a little cafe filled with chain-smoking Vietnamese people drinking Bia Hoi and throwing peanut shells on the floor. We were a little shocked to open the menu and see that it offered veal, snakehead, frog, turtle - and dog meat!! Jak had the chicken burger and chips, hoping that bits of Fido hadn't made its way into his minced chicken. I played it safe and ordered a vegetarian noodle soup but they only gave me chopsticks to eat it with so I ended up with soup dribbled all over my chin and the table. Classy.

Today we got up early, again, and caught a taxi to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where the body of the deceased and celebrated Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh resides. It was a bizarre experience. We were shouted at about five times by people in uniform for going the wrong way before we eventually found the correct entrance, down a side street. Then we had to hand in our bags and file along two by two to the entrance of the mausoleum. Here we were advised to be silent and keep our hands by our sides by more uniformed guards, some of whom were armed with rifles with pointy looking knives tied to the ends. Once inside, you spend perhaps a minute in the room where Ho Chi Minh lies in a glass coffin with lights shone on him, perhaps 40 seconds. What I found most interesting is how he has been preserved so that people can visit the mausoleum and pay their respects - despite his dying wishes to be cremated! He looked very peaceful but it all felt a bit wrong and, like I said, it was a thoroughly bizarre experience.

Afterwards we took a look around the nearby Ho Chi Minh Museum where there was lots of information and pictures depicting what the leader did for the country, and a giant statue of him. It was all so different to how we treat and talk about our prime ministers, and it was worth looking round just to see that difference. At one point I was mobbed by school kids who insisted on having their pictures taken with me one by one. Afterwards I saw them going up to another white lady and doing the same. Pretty surprising when you consider how many tourists are in Hanoi but kind of funny too.

At the moment we are killing some time in a cafe. Tonight we will be catching an overnight train to Hue.