Land of the Limestone Cliffs

The floating bar- Nha Trang
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Got picked up at 8am for our 3 1/2hr bus trip to Halong Bay. On our way there we walked through the streets and saw coffins for sale and headstones being made up on the pavemants!!!Anything goes eh!

The bus journey was pretty scenic as we travelled north through the countryside. So many rice feilds it's unbelievable!  Seemily 50% of Vitenamese are farmers!  I even saw a wee skinny lady pulled a huge big water buffalo by the horns!

When we go to Halong Bay (World Unesco Hertiage site) we got on a boat. There were only 4 of us on this big boat! There were more staff than tourists! We spent the afternoon on the boat. It was pretty chilly but at least it didnt rain!  The Bay is beautiful. There are thousands of islands. We stopped off at one of them to explore some ancients caves. There were pretty impressive. The stalacties and stalacmites were something else-hugemungous!

me having a drink in the sea ;o) Cheers
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The staff cooked us up a big lunch which was tasty was always, they even gave us a bottle of Vietnamese wine- not bad.  Our guide let us taste his rice wine- geez was it ever strong!  Wouldnt need much of that to get you to sleep at night!

Cruised around all afternoon which was very relaxing and peaceful- NO hoot hoot hooting of the mororbikes for once!!!!  The weather was not the best but as Laura said it was pretty "mystical", like being back home at Loch Lomond, or Loch Ness.

The camakazie boat band ;O)
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When we got back to Hanoi we went out for dinner. Strolled through some markets which were nice. Played "avoid the motorbike"- you honestly feel as though you are in a real life computer game!

Got some munchies for our overnight train to Danang (12hrs).  We were sharing our cabin with 4 locals. It wasnt too bad. We were on the 3 level. Managed to get a few hours kip ;o)