We woke after a good rest in our somewhat noisy hotel room, we had breakfast before deciding to take a tour boat around Ha Long bay. There were lots of tour operators, however we had missed the main departure of the tourist boats, we would have to take a private boat- or at least that's the only option we were being offered. This seemed to be a reasonably option although we probablly paid through the nose at 25us$ each. We were taken on a bus to a small harbour ...

Today we set out from Nam Sach at 9am to get to the ferry terminal for 2.45pm. We had about 60k to make. We were unsure which road we were on but the locals pointed us in the general direction- East. We stopped for breakfast about 10k into our journey at a roadside cafe- pho again (noodle soup). We then pressed east on the highway, this seems to be the quickest way without all the map stops at every junction. We made it to Hai Phong by 12.30 we had made good time...

Day 1 cycling to Hai Phong - slightly south and west of Halong bay. We got hold of 2 trek mountain bikes for Roo and Matt packed the panniers and set off from the relative safety and comfort zone we had developed in our hostel. We had a photocopied map and a compass and spirits were high. We made it out of the city crossing the large river to the east of Hanoi over a railway bridge- it seemed to be the only route available for bikes. We traveled along route 5 fo...

Wow what a day!! It started off on the wrong foot, we tried to get the hire bikes for Roo and Matt the American to cycle to Halong bay. We trekked across town to the bike hire place to find it closed! The security man at the bike hire place telephoned someone and sent us away to another hotel the other side of the town. Anyway after about 2 hrs of walking around the town we had seen the bikes, but the woman who has the keys for the lock seemed to have disappeared...

Roo arrived safely!! an early start for to catch the bus to the airport at 8 am how my perspective has changed in such a short time!! We got back to the hostel at about 11 a quick stop for Roo to drop her bags off before we headed out in to Hanoi to see the sights. Roo has brought some Thai sun with her, for the first time I've been here the sun came out. We walked around the city in the busy streets had some tasty spring rolls in a street cafe. I have event...