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 } --> 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...

<!-- @page { margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } --> 15 July: Hanoi Today was an admin day, we had to find another accommodation, research the different Halong bay tours and also do some of the touristy things on offer. We headed out firstly to find another guest house, further down the road there were various hotels that we visited and compared, before finding one which we liked. They were willing to give us a room for $8, fan, TV, ba...