we got picked up from our hotel and made our way via charter bus to halong bay, we met up with a couple of foriegn travellers, couple of auzzys, couple french,couple of japanese, and four dutch. we got to the boats after making a stop at a ceramic factory (with no incentive of buying we used their toilets and got an ice cream). the boats were huge luxury vessels and each had a top deck that had some deck chairs on it was quite spectacular really. we got to our b...

arrived at hanoi at about 9pm and the first thing that hit us was the amazing scorching heat of outdoors! we stepped through the airconned doorway into what seemed like the sun! it was hot! we had multiple taxi drivers and companies trying to hustle us into thier car, because obviously it was the best! anyway after consulting the bible (lonely planets) we found a suitable taxi. after haggling in the scorching 28 degree heat for about 5 mins we decided to pile o...