Last night we met back up with our new Australian friends for a
farewell drink and dinner. We drank at Bia Hoi corner on tiny plastic
chairs that quickly got dragged off the street every time the crappest
cops in the world went past and then headed to a place packed full of
locals for food. Each table was given a big plate of meat strips,
veggies and a parafin burner and, again on tiny plastic chairs, we
cooked our own dinner (well Michael did cos he’s a chef in Sydney).
When the strips & veggies were done we grabbed a few, stuck them in a
baguette and shoved it in our mouths. Delicious! A few more beers
followed before we had to say goodbye.

Today we had a very welcome lie-in followed by a nice hearty
breakfast. Then we had a last wander around the city before going to
watch the wonderfully tacky water puppet show (see photo). Some parts
were pretty clever and it was definitely worth going but I doubt we’d
rush back for a second performance!

Early start tomorrow before our flight so will have a quiet evening we
think.

We’re back! What a trip. We booked a 3 day, 2 night trip on the Ha
Long Bay with Kangaroo Cafe which we almost couldn’t do until a family
of 4 Aussies walked in & made up the numbers for a trip on Monday.
Thank goodness for them!

We set off on Monday morning with another 2 people who had also booked
on the tour. This meant we had a 12 person boat with only 8 on it, so
we had loads of room. The boat was one of the nicest places we’ve
stayed in so far and best of all the other 6 people on the boat with
us were brilliant company. So good in fact that Robyn and Ken from
Australia (happy 60th birthday again Robyn) have kindly offered us a
bed for when we’re in Sydney!

While in Ha Long Bay we saw caves, swam in the sea, saw monkeys,
relaxed, but most of all ate lots & lots of really good food, mostly
provided by the staff on the boat. It’s gonna be tricky going back on
our budget now we’re back!

We have another day in Ha Noi tomorrow & then we fly to Krabi in
Thailand on Friday. Now off to meet the Aussies for a farewell couple
of beers.

First things first, GO WALES! Even without Shane they can beat the old
enemy, marvellous! (that’s from Jen btw)

We spent today seeing Hanoi’s sights by first visiting the Catholic
cathederal which was very odd to see in the East. Then it was off to
the history museums which had exceptional detail and artifacts from
thousands of years ago but got a little biased (& selectively vague)
in the more recent history!

Below is a photo of the superior Museum of History that covered
pre-1945 events.

Tomorrow is the Ha Long Bay which we are really excited about. We have
also now booked flights to Krabi via Bangkok on the 20th so we should
have loads of time in the south for beaches and diving. Yippee!

We made it to Ha Noi at 4.30am today after a 12 hour train journey!
It’s 6pm now & we’re still awake! Nothing was open at 4.30am so we sat
by the lake watching the joggers, power walkers & tai chi until 7am
when things started to open.

Hanoi seems really nice plus we have booked a 3 day boat trip around
Ha Long Bay from Monday. We have tomorrow to explore the city & then
when we return from Ha Long Bah we have slightly changed our plan
because Laos is just too difficult, slow & expensive to do so we will
fly directly to the SW coast of Thailand at the end of next week (not
that we have booked it yet…prob do that tomorrow so we will let you
know the plan once organised).

Now off for food and an early night.