20 July: Cho Ra Up at 06h00, we finished up and walked to a local's house next door to where we were staying. He would take us to Ba Be National Park with his boat. When we arrived we were shown to a table where he poured tea for the both of us while he finished his cigarette. Afterwards we walked down the streets to the river just below the market, where his boat was moored. We jumped aboard and were shown to our seats, the only ones on the boat, small ...

19 July: Cho Ra The alarm went off at 07h30, but we were only out of bed just after 08h00, we showered finished up with the bulk of our packing, before heading to the Happy Mart to stock up again on cereal, milk, toothpaste, deodorant and some things for the road. Our bus was supposed to leave for Bac Can, a 6 hour local bus trip. We finished packing relaxing in our room with its aircon before greeting the hotel staff and looking for a motorbike taxi to take...

18 July: Hanoi We were up at 05h00, a few minutes later we were dressed and sitting on the deck. Only the Dutch couple were also up to watch the sun rise, we were all able to grab our own deck chair. A few minutes later the sky turned different shades of red, orange and pink, there were a few clouds, but it still looked stunning when the sun came out above them. We continued to lay there watching the early morning goings until after 06h00, our eyes falling...

<!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> 17 July: Halong Bay We woke up and still it was raining, during the night both Leanne and I had awakened to showers of rain from the typhoon crossing the south china sea. We packed all we needed into our two small bags and walked down to breakfast. Leanne tried to find out from the owners brother regarding the rain and its influence on the boat trip, naturally he had no clue what rain ...

<!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> 16 July: Hanoi We were up early, heading by motorbike taxi's to the Chinese Embassy to try and get a visa enabling us to tour China for 2 months without having to exit the country. We currently had a 2 month visa, but it required us to exit the country and then re-enter, a problem with a country the size of some continents. We arrived at 07h30, only to find they only opened at 8h30. W...