Well hello again. . . Blimey, it's been a mad few days since I last spoke to you guys. . . So, yeah, we left Sapa and after a crazy ride in the mini bus back to the train station, we picked up our tickets and had a bite to eat as we had to wait a while before boarding the train. We were all actually quite looking forward to the train journey, as the ride up was quite nice and cosy. . . Little did we know that the train we were about to get onto was an old bag of s***. . . . . ?!?!

Yeah, it smelt of, well lets just say it smelt and the beds, well they weren't the cosy little bunks we had on the way up with nice little duvet, oh no, they were these hard smelly horrible bunks. Still, we watched a movie and then got our heads down, well we tried to. . . I am not sure if was the fact that the train was clearly older than the one had come up in, but the whole journey felt different. . . It wasn't really that comfortable and it seemed more bumpy?!?!

Anyway, enough moaning. . . We actually left earlier than we were told, so therefore arrived back in Hanoi earlier, now you may the=ink that this was a good thing and in normal circumstances it would be, but it was 4am. . . . ! Yeah, by the time we got back to our hostel it was 4.30am and all shut up, obviously. . . They did open up for us to drop off our bags, but we didn't have a room booked as we were leaving at 8am for Ha Long Bay. . . . So we had a few hours to kill and nowhere to go! Before I get into what we did actually do, I wanna tell about another bit of fun we had getting from the train station to the hotel, yeah, the usual, people seeing you as tourist and trying to rip you off. . . . Taxi, taxi. . . "On the meter", we say. . . . 'No', they want 3 times the correct price. . . . ! Well anyway, we tell them to 'Do one' and head out to the main street exit, where there are more taxi drivers, etc. . . . We say a guy and he says "Yes, meter, no problem", to which we are automatically suspicious and rightly so, as we saw his little meter runs round faster than a fast thing on a fast day! We cover nearly 3km's in about 10 seconds, well that's what the meter said. . . .! By this point we were laughing and basically giving the taxi driver loads of stick, of course we payed, you have to, don't you?!?!?! Well, maybe not, but at 4.30 in the morning, it can be a little difficult. . . .! Even after his dodgy meter trick, it was still cheaper than the other robbing b******s back at the station!

So, yeah, here we were, back in Hanoi with nowhere to go. There was nowhere gonna be open til at least 6 or 7am, so we had a bit of a walk up to the lake area. It was sort of nice, but 2 extra hours in bed would have been nicer! We sat on a beach near the lake as dawn was beginning to break and watched all the crazy Vietnamese do their daily workout routines. . . . We moved positions and found a restaurant that would be opening at 6am, so we sat just down the round from there and waited. . . . To be honest, it was absolute comedy. . . Watching the locals do all sorts of workouts, they don't just take a steady jog around the lake, oh no, that would be too easy, no they do all sorts of elaborate stretching and stuff! I have actually got a couple of short video clips of it and I tell you want, I could get £250 off you've been framed, no problem. It was pure comedy! I will post it on my blog page when I get chance! You'll love it, I promise!

So, the time past, we got some well earned coffee and breakfast then headed back to the hotel where we were picked up for our trip to Ha Long Bay. . . . The bus journey was supposed to take 3 hours, but I think we had the crappest driver in Vietnam. . . . 4 hours later and after an un-needed stop at a factory we got to the port. . . The weather had improved and you would be pleased to know that the sun was beaming down! We got introduced to another guide and he asked us to follow him, I am not sure, but it sounded like we were not going the original boat that was planned. . . . Not to worry, we clambered over lots of other boats and got to ours, they all sort of just cram into the port and park up next to, in front of and behind each other, so yeah, you have to climb over all these boats to get to yours. . . . It was OK for me, although a little awkward at times with the big back pack on my bag, but poor old Claire she had all her stuff and was wearing her high heal boots! We managed to get onboard only to find there were no other travellers as such on boards, just some Malaysian holiday makers, now to me, that isn't a problem, but when you book through a backpackers hotel, you expect to see backpackers on board. . . ?!?! Anyway, they all turned out to be quite nice and not all of them stayed on the boat overnight, we dropped more than half off at an island. . .

The boats were awesome, I mean, you know Ha Long Bay right, you must have seen it on TV at some stage, well, it was beautiful, so picturesque. It was great being out on a boat again and the weather, the weather was awesome. . . ! We got our swimmers on and a bit of sun cream and then chilled out on the top deck. . . Happy days!

Later on we were shown our room, something else that had changed from the original. . . They had managed to get us a triple room, which was actually really nice! I thought I was going to have to share with someone else. . . ?! But anyway, yeah the room was great, the boat was nice and we were very chilled out and happy, oh yeah, the beers were flowing also . . . hehehehe. . . . That day we basically just mozied on around the bay going between all the beautiful limestone cliffs. . . We visited some caves, that had been made very touristy and then dropped the people off at the island before getting to our final destination for the day, where we would moor up to 2 other boats for the night. . . It was at this time that me and Nick got the opportunity to do something we had bee dieing to do all day. . . Jump in! Now the water isn't the best in the world, by a long stretch, but where we were wasn't too bad, there were spots we past that had oily slicks and rubbish and stuff, that wasn't nice to see. So yeah in true Brit style I dived in from the top deck, the water wasn't cold, but it wasn't warm either, but it felt great, I was happy as a pig in poo!

We jumped and dived in a few more times and had a bit of a swim around before getting out, as it was actually getting dark. We showered up and headed down for our evening meal. At lunch time, I forgot to mention they put on quite a little spread of food, salad stuff, fish, etc. And that evening was more of the same, it actually seemed nicer than what we had had at lunch and as there was only the 3 of us now, there was more to go round. . . . ! We were all really tired, Claire went off to bed to read and pretty much past out and me and Nick played a few games of cards and had our final beer for the evening before retiring to our quarters. . . It was still quite early, so me and Nick opted to watch a movie. . . We went for the latest Rocky movie. . . . Hhhmmmm. . . ? Have any of you seen it? I would really like to know what you thought. . . ? Now I am a real Rocky movie fan, I grew up with the stuff, it was great, me and my best mate used to watch them, then beat the crap out of each other singer 'Eye of the Tiger'! Come on, you've all done it right?!?! Well, this latest offering, was written and directed by Stallone and well. . . What a load of crap! Slow, boring, slow, did I mention slow. . . Very poor. . . ! That's all I am gonna say about that!

So after that little offering we past out. . . Up early, as you always are on a boat and down for breakfast. . . . hmmmm, what a crap offering that was. Some stale bread and jam. . . ! Thanks! After breaky we were off again and heading to pick up some kayaks. . . Yippee, I like kayaking, as I am sure you are aware, if you have been keeping track on my trip. . . ? Well, we went through all the safety briefings, of course I am joking about that, they didn't even ask if we could swim, they did however say we had to take a life vest, as the police could tell them off. . . The guy said we can just sit on them though. . . Great! I am a confident swimmer anyway, so wasn't too bothered. I got a kayak to myself as they guide didn't seem that confident about coming with us. I said it was OK and that I would prefer to go it alone, even though it was a 2 person kayak. . . . We headed out into the bay from our shelter between some of the peaks and went towards our goal. . . It was one of the peaks with a small beach area and a climb up to a view point. We made over in about 20 minutes, we didn't hang around too much as we didn't have much time and wasn't sure how long it would take us. . . We did the walk up the hill and took some great scenic photos, but I suppose you have to be there to appreciate it's beauty?!?!

After that we were disappointed to hear that we were heading back and would be back in port by around 11.30, so after packing everything up, we chilled out on deck and absorbed some rays! Back on dry land we had the 4 hour journey back to Hanoi to look forward to, but it would be that easy. . . . ! We got back early, around 11am and by the time we actually left Ha Long, it was close on to 1.30pm. . . . We basically were taken to one of the tour company restaurants for lunch and had again a similar lunch. I know we needed to eat, but we were just hanging around waiting all the time, we also had to swap buses as ours was supposedly broken. . . . They crammed us all in on this new and we were off. . . Yippee, some two and half hours after hitting land. . . I know, I am probably sounding like I am moaning, but the weather was gorgeous, the bay was gorgeous, I wanted to be out on the boat, not stuck in some s***ty restaurant or on a bus. . . . !

We got back to Hanoi, of course after stopping for a toilet break, at a factory shop!!! The journey back was OK though as I decided to watch a movie to help kill the time. . . I watch 'Shooter', it was little silly in parts, but still quite a good film. . . . It did help make the journey go quicker and before I knew it, we were back in the crazy city of Hanoi, beep beeeeep, beep, bloody beep! They use there horns a lot there!

The following day, we were getting a flight back over to Bangkok, so had arranged a room back at the same hotel. . . They actually put us in one of their others ones, which was fine, as they were really nice people. . . . We headed out that evening back to a nice restaurant we had eaten in before. We had a nice chilled out evening with good food, a few beers and a bottle of wine! We were all pretty shattered some headed back for an earlyish evening. I had to have a giggle again watching Claire and Nick try and pack their bags. . . ! We were up bright and early and the taxi was waiting. . . ! Once at Hanoi airport we were hoping to get some breakfast, but no such look, for and international airport, it was a bit crap. Very modern and clean, don't get me wrong, just no facilities really. . . . . ! We got back to Bangkok, jumped in a taxi and before we new it we were in Koh San Road area again. . . . And you know what, it felt good to be back there! The only little scare on the way in the taxi, which I feel I should mention was us hitting a traffic sign. . . Well, not us, the driver of course, I don't think he was concentrating enough and ended up scratching his wing and door, and not to mention ripping his wing mirror off as he swerved very late to try and miss it. . . . The roads were very busy, so I think we were lucky not to get hit. . . . The driver was clearly not happy and continued to chunter for the rest of the journey!

I think I will leave it there for now. . . . I have done the Bangkok thing, but will right it up separately. . . . Speak again soon guys. . . Anyone fancy a beer in Seymours?