A must do from Hanoi is to visit Halong Bay. Here you spend 2 days and 1 night (or more) on a junk cruising around this spectacular World Hertiage site. Over 3000 small islands rise out of emerald green waters, the majority are unhabited. It takes about 3 hours to drive to the Bay area, so once more I was able to see more of the countryside. The difference in architecture was again apparent including things like the cemetaries. We drove past working rice paddies...

I arrived in Vietnam fairly late in the afternoon, slightly apprehensive of what the country had to offer. Along the way I had met a variety of people who had visited Vietnam and had very mixed experiences, including people spitting on them. First mission was to get through visa control. Due to the hysteria of swine fever, Vietnam had taken strick precautions. Well they asked you to complete a form asking if you had any of the symptoms- a definite preventive meas...