Hi all!

Well another long night-bus bought us aaall the way up the final stretch of coast from Hue (which was lovely, though only a short stay - some more sight seeing, more whizzing about on a moped, more tiger beer, and of course much more sweating!) to Hanoi. Michelle made a good point on facebook that you 'can take the girl out of Edgcott but you cant take the Edgcott-love out of the girl' - this must be true because while Hanoi is a million time nicer than HCM City both Joe and I still find it overwhelming! Haha...so yesterday and today we escaped to the peaceful surroundings of Halong Bay (as in picture) which was awe inspiring. Such a fantastic area, it is being voted to be one of the natural wonders of the world i think, and i can see why. We spend yesterday sailing around the HUGE rocks (Gem - you would have L.O.V.E.D it!), eating wonderful food on the boat, swimming, kayaking into caves and then sitting up on the top deck watching the stars when the sun went down. Very cool.

Possible the best part of this Halong Bay adventure was that we were on a boat with NAPOLOEON DYNAMITE.........!!!........ok, so maybe not the ACTUAL Napoleon Dynamite but he was the spitting image. Quite something! We were both very impressed!

So, onwards and upwards (well westwards actually) - tomorrow we fly to Luang Prabang in Laos and so our Vietnam stretch comes to an end, but we are both excited to see new things. Quite likely that everything is going to be slower and less advanced in Laos so updates may not be so frequent unfortunately. We may not be there so long anyway though as we have spent more time here in Vietnam than expected so need to make up time elsewhere. Cannot believe we are nearly 3 weeks in! Time is whizzing by, and yet it feels like so much longer ago that we were seeing you guys off at the airport (mum, dad, gem, lol!)

Missing everyone as always - thanks for messages - Jen, Michelle, Linz, Nancy, M&D, Gem...as for the rest of you.....some news and love please?!?!?!

Lots of love,

The intrepid travellers, and city-fearing, Vic and Joe!

xxx