Lovely Hanoi and Halong Bay

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On arriving at Hanoi Airport we made the decision to catch the local bus to the city for 30 cents saving a whole $5. We navigated our way through the taxi and minibus touts and feeling rather pleased with our selves found the stop we needed. And what luck! The bus we wanted was pulling in....driving past...and then pulling out - leaving us standing like muppets - all the other vietnamese having run alongside the bus and hurled themselves on. First rule of vietnamese traffic - it stops for nothing. Next time we were prepared and were soon on the bus bumping long the road listening to the blaring horn as the bus bore down on bycycles, mopeds and smaller traffic. Our second lesson was in moped ownership. Everyone in Hanoi is surgically attached to their moped and owns at least two....and they drive everywhere -pavements,shops. When you least expect it you hear the beeping and lookup to see a moped bearing down on you usually carrying at least two people and assorted packages. Within a short time we'd mastered crossing the road (on a matter of principle we still chose crossings and waited for the green man even though no-one stopped - see video).The technique is to do three hail maries and then cross. However before we could get quite used to the madness that is traffic in Hanoi we had decided to whiz onto Halong Bay the next day to take advantage of a two day window of lovely weather. So at 12am the following morning we were sat on our lovely junk cruising out to the bay and debating whether the vientamese would sail like they drive. Seconds later a huge crash we turned around to find we had collided with another boat - the only one within a radius of about a mile. We were to collide with several other boats over the next few days also some of the rocky outcrops that Halong is famous for and some floating villages. Sometimes the collision was called 'mooring' other times we had no idea why it happened.
We had a fab time in Halong bay - swimming, canoeing, hiking and cycling on Cat Ba island. The group we were with were lovely and the food was gorgeous. On the hike in Cat Ba our guide took us to some caves to show us where he and other villagers had hidden while the USA was bombing the area heavily in the '60s. While we were looking round a rat had an experimental nibble at Zoe's foot and tried to run up her leg- causing mass panic. Returning to the village later we were fortified by some snake wine - which tasted like rice wine but had bits of feather and scale in it...

Back in Hanoi we ate and ate - such good food both in the restaurants and on the street. But we played it safe and despite such delicacies as tortoise and dog on many menu we stuck with chicken...we hope.
We walked around for the next few days - seeing the sights. Sadly Ho Chi Minh's embalmed corpse was on its annual holiday but we did wander the masoleum. The city was pretty hassle free - vendors respond well to a no thank you and a smile and leave you alone. The weirdest was a Japanese tourist who descended on us shouting 'kissy kissy' and wielding his camera phone. We declined to 'kissy kissy' for the camera but did pose and smile although we would rather have given him the finger.We think it might have been Eric's new Hanoi street-style hairdo that attracted the attention (see pics).

For Zoe's birthday we found a lovely restaurant on 69 Ma May, a gorgeous old style Hanoi townhouse where we managed to get a balcony seat. Food was good and celebratory cocktails even better- it felt like a massive blowout but actually cost about $15!

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