Halong Bay and Sapa

Halong bay is a lot of this.
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So here is how it went down, Travelling alone i decided to join a tour group to the world heritage Halong Bay kast islands. Mainly hoping for single females travelling alone i was all out of luck when the only other person travelling alone was a returned vietnam vet named skip. None the less it was a good mix of people and we had a ball.

The first night our tour guide "Happy" donned his traditional vietnamese man dress and sang a couple of folk songs to us. From what we could make out they were generally about some one named jhym getting phuced.

The emergence of Indiana Flanagan

Throw in a few caves and you're starting to get an idea.
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At the conclusion of Happy's performance he invited individuals from each country to sing a traditional song to the rest of the group. One very helpful individual by the name of kevin (you know who you are) informed happy that my grandfather actually wrote waltzing matilda and that i was his man if it was a song he was after. However not being able to remember all the words to waltzing matilda i still represented the australian contingent among the group by performing two very moving renditions of "we're happy little vegemites" and "I like aeroplane jelly". Both pieces were enthusiastically received and having set the bar so high the other nationalities were a tad intimidated and unwilling to do their bit........ Until some tarty little irish upstart sang some bloody gaelic folk song in the most amazing voice. But in interest of national pride it was agreed amongst the other australians that she was showing off and i quite clearly had the more impressive performance.

More limestone sticking out of the ground.
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The next day is when indiana flangan popped up. Between kyaking through swallow infested caves (swallows can be quite nasty) and trekking deep into the heart of cat ba national park through dense forrest and spiders that could easily be described as man eating i could liken myself to no other person but indiana jones. On the trip to sapa indiana flangan became even more prominent as he trekked through mountains discovering massive dope plantations that one could only assume were owned by a triad drug cartel, decrepit rope bridges and doing battle with buffalo, this adventure yet again had all the characteristics of an indiana jones movie plot.

Only Indiana Flanagan can face one of these babies and live to talk about it. (they were actually a little to close for comfort).
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it became even more interesting when on the last night all out of cash i met an english lass , who too was all out of cash. after having just witnessed a motorbike accident hours before that left a man either dead or unconscious, against our better judgement we got on the back of some motor bikes and headed for the nearest ATM. This is where it gets interesting....

Somewhere between "ATM?" and checking to see where lassy was we ended up at the chinese border. Freaking out that we were on our way to china and not to the ATM i didn't even get a photo as i was busy telling the driver we were going the wrong way. Two ATM's later and still no money we had some pretty frustrated drivers looking for some cash, but in true Indiana Jones style, Indiana Flanagan got out of a sticky spot.

Indiana Flangan trekked up and over this mountain through all that jungle. He rocks!
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anyway enough bullshit look at the photos.

p.s. I'm so good i talked my way out of a fine for riding the train wihtout a valid ticket and I managed to scam a free nights accomodation at ninh binh, all in same day!

make sure you check out the other photos!