Part 2 - Hanoi

So Saturday was fun . . . We started the day being passed around 3 different police offices while everybody played a big game of pass the buck . . . And ended up at the big police office (with our extremely helpfull hostel receptionist) filling out statement forms in duplicate as they "didnt have a copier!" - really! The old lady in the corner shop down the road has a copier and your saying the district police don't have one . . . my aunt fanny!

Anyway I digress - eventually we made it back to the hostel, by this time it was getting on for dinner time (bearing in mind we arrived in Hanoi at 11am) so we went for a big pizza each.

The next day the weather was better so we did some geocaching and went for a walk round the tiny roads of the old quarter. All the business is done in districts - its a bit odd, there is a street full of just flower shops then a street for buttons and thread then a street for air conditioning units . . . Makes life easier for shopping around not to good for competing businesses though.

We had lunch in a cafe that had a 3 week old puppy in it so I was happy. Then bimbled back to the hostel for showers etc before dinner.

Our last day in Hanoi consisted of being mostly agravated . . . We are fast running out of malaria tablets (no thanks to our poo doctor who wouldn't give us enough . . .don't get me started) so we got a cab out to the international doctors centre. We got an apointment no problem but had to wait about 2 hours . . . The doctor was very nice and wrote us out a perscription for all the tablets we would need, saving us going through all the fuss and bother again. Then it came to paying the bill . . . The tablets set us back about 5pounds for both of us - very reasonable the 10 min apointment was 120 quid! Jog on! We complained but got nowhere . . . Humph.

Then we went to part with more money buying a new small camera . . . So by this point we were more than a bit miffed. So we bought a massive ice cream and went to the cinema for a bit of escapism. Thank god for talking zoo animal movies.

Early next morning we were picked up for our 4 hour drive up to Halong Bay, the weather was a bit drizzly but still warm. Our tour guide eric was cool and our fellow travelers were all very nice and chatty so a good start. We picked up the junk boat and headed out into the bay. After sailing for about 30 mins we lost sight of all the other boats, it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves - glorious.

Our first stop was a beautifull cave full of drippy stalagtites and pools of water - then back on the boat to head over to one of the floating villages for canoeing. We shared a canoe - the condition of the paddles and life jackets left a little to be desired, but the water was lovely and warm and we could swim so not really a problem. We paddled away from the boat through some small tunnels through the mountains into enclosed pools - it was stunning. There were families of swifts nesting in the rocks. We just sat there for a bit taking it all in beffore paddling back through another little cove.

So back onto the boat to head for Cat Ba island. We were then driven to our hotel for the night. Dinner was lovely - lots of sea food and spring roll treats.

Part 3 comming soon.

Mrs p