I'm slowly getting more up to date with letting you know what we have been up to, but will keep it reasobably short and sweet as 1 I don't want to bore you and 2 I'm really hungry!

We arrived in Hanoi and got picked up by our hotel with a board saying 'Ricardo' which was nice - so far we have also had Mr Richard a few times! It was a 35KM trip to the city so we sat back and enjoyed the views.  It was really quite bizarre as the roads into the city were build straight through the paddy fields, with large advertising at the sides of the roads - but I guess the farmers get paid quite a lot for the advert space!

We arrived at Win Hotel which was in the heart of the city and a great location to see everything.  Thestaff at the hotel could not have been more helpful and helped us in booking our trip to Ha Long Bay and our hotel in Hue.  We should have asked them to book our trvel on the train down to Hue which was 12 hours - as we did this ourseloves, but ended up having to share a sleeper with 6 others - and they only had the smallest top bunks left - it was always going to be fun!  Just not the four * treatment Jo was used to!

During our time in Hanoi we met a really nice couple form Manchester who we joined to go and see a number of the tourist sites - both very down to earth and a good laugh.  We went and saw the Ho Chi Minh Mauseleum which had more security then Heathrow airport and also to the Miletary History Museum which was very interesting if not very dis-organised.  We did pick some good places to eat - one of which consisted of a chef standing next to our table while he prepaired my fish - which was some what of a novelty, but a lot of the food we ate, we were not sure what it was and after being spoilt in Thailand we had our hopes quite high.

After having a couple of fill days in Hanoi we booked a trip to go and see Ho Long bay which was a 4 hour trip away - we decided to book it with Kangeroo Cafe as this came highly recommedned from a number of sources.  At first we weren't sure what to make of our other 6 travellers on our tour, but after a few hours we got chatting and I don't think we could have a had a better group - 4 from Australia Perth and two others from Germany. 

We were quite unlucky with the weather as it was very misty, but gave quite and eiry feel to the trip as Ha Long bay is the place which consists of thousands of panisula's which rise out of the water (which you will see what I mean from the photo's).  The route is now restricted to a set route for most of the boats, so you din't feel overly special as we all headed out of harbour and through the beatiful bay in a mass convoy of boats!!  However our guide Sun was really good and we were taked to a large cave which was huge and got taken to an area near an Oyster farm.  Here we were the only boat so was nice to have the tranquillity without other boats around.  Even thou it was cold a few of us braved the cold waters as it was such an idilic spot, was quite nervy as there were jelly fish the size of fridges in the water - but we just about managed to avoid them!

In the evening we moured up and had a really nice meal and I thionk the crew were despearely wanting us to do Karioke - but we all voted against and played cards until the early hours instead.  The following morning we went to a gordeous beach which we walked up 400 steps to have a spectacular view over the whole of the bay - it still was quite misty, but about the clearest it had been.  After this we headed back to the main port and headed back to Hanoi to pick up our bags and get a taxi to the station so we could jump on our train down to Hue.