Ha Long bay.

Apparently we are not very good at cities. And since you really have to see it while in Vietnam, we decided to book ourselves on to a trip to Ha Long Bay.

For the bargain price of $95 we got 2 days and 1 night in Ha Long, including an overnight stay on a boat. I have to admit you could not fault it. The boat was very clean and tidy and they supplied us with endless plates of incredible food - I can definitely see how people come back from Asia fatter than when they came. We were really lucky with our crew members as they were mainly all our age, our crew consisted of: 3 Dutch, 2 Americans, 3 older Brits, a Filipino and us. Luckily we bonded all pretty quickly.

Standing on top of one of the Ha Long bay islands, someone piped up with: "we have seen some many amazing things, that they seem as amazing as they should." Now don't get us wrong, the bay was breath-taking, but after seeing all that we have it just doesn't have the same impact. It is a shame in some ways that we couldn't have seen it earlier in the trip as maybe we would have appreciated it more.

Unfortunately words don't really do the scenery enough justice, so I'm going to let the pictures do the talking and give you a rough outline of what we did during those 36 hours:

- we were picked up by a mini bus for 4 hours journey to Ha long bay and our boat. (Word of advice: don't take random Thai anti-travel sick tablets. They completely knocked us out for the majority of the journey!)
- next was check in and a huge lunch before we headed off for a swim and a hike up some stairs to the best view in Ha long.
- next M and LG headed off for a canoe round the bay, I was jealous but the fear of falling in took over so I didn't want to brave it.
- time to head back to the boat for dinner and squid fishing, which was not only dull but we were appalling at, before bed.
- the next morning we awoke nice and early for breakfast before heading too some caves. They were lovely but it was far to early to appreciate them properly. Then it was time to head home to Hanoi. Shame we could have stayed for longer but that trip was fully booked.

Next we have the excited of a 12hour overnight train to Hue, wish us luck!!!