Goooood Morning (from) Vietnam!! We made it! After the gruelling 22 hour coach journey we've now been in vietnam a good 4 or 5 days. The coach journey was, as expected, boring and tiresome, not to mention pretty damn freezing when we stopped of for 5 hours to wait for the border crossing to open (i ended up wearing 3 t-shirts and a jumper). Just to make things a little more interesting, the driver was a complete nut case, driving recklessly throughout, and even knocking over a motorcyclist when we reached Hanoi. Hanoi and motorcycles, my God. I've never seen so many in my life! The population of this, the capital of Vietnam, is 4million, yet there are 2million motorcycles, and beleive me it feels like 2 million when you're crossing the road! 15-20 fatal road accidents a day, apparently... but dont worry we're all very safe and sensible! Vietnam is a fascinating country form what little of it we've seen so far. I've found it more culturally interesting than the previous 2 countries we've visited. We've been to the museum of the Vietnamese revolution, and also to the Hao Lo prison. This prison is where Vietnamese patriots and revolutionaries we're imprisoned tortured and killed by the French colonialists. It was pretty scary to be honest, we walked in the tiny cells and saw the guillotines they used. The Vietnamse people have put up with a lot over the years, they are very resilient. Interestingly, the prison is also where the Vietnamese kept the American POWs, who were treated infinately better than the Vietnamese ever were there. I've also noticed a lot of pride. They may have been invaded and colonised and ruled over by the Chinese, the French, the Japanese and attacked by the Americans, but they won their country back. As we drove over a bridge our guide remarked that one of the bridges was made by the French, "and this one" he said as his face lit up "this one was made by our people". From Hanoi we took a 3 days/2nights trip to Ha Long Bay. A world heritage sight, its supposed to be one of the most beautiful areas in all of SE Asia. I say 'supposed to be' cos im really not quite sure, we chose the foggiest time of the year to go! The bay has around 2000 islands, and what we saw of them was beautiful, but I cant help but feel a tad disappointed that we went to Ha Long Bay and didnt get quite as much out of it as one could. It was still a laugh though, we spent the first night on a boat, and we ended up jumping over to the boat next to us and drinking with some Americans. We came back this morning by coach and ferry, as opposed to the boat because it was foggy to such an extent that it became dangerous. Tomorrow morning Im going to see Ho Chi Minh's embalmbed body (he was a revolutionary and is the country's hero; he's on every bank note) and then in the evening Im heading south across the coast to Hue. Thanks for all your messages, and keep in touch. Si