Hanoi and Halong Bay - Vietnam

---

We have spent two and a half weeks now in Vietnam and to say it has been wet is an understatement! We arrived in Hanoi to flooded streets. We attempted some sight seeing the following day but gave up after battling the rain for a couple of hours!

The next day we headed off on a 3 day boat trip to Halong Bay which was beautiful. The weather stayed mostly dry for us but was not the scorching weather we were hoping for. Halong Bay is a really beautiful place with 3,000 islands jutting out from the calm waters. The first day we visited a huge cave which was quite fascinating. We stayed on the boat for both nights but didnt realise that the rest of our group had chosen the hotel option on one of the islands for the second night so it was just us two and the two very friendly Vietnamese crew who didnt speak a word of English but insisted on us doing shots of, what we think was, Whiskey (but could have been rice wine) and serving us cups of their local tea (which was vile and we threw it out of the window everytime they turned around, only for them to notice our cups were empty and top us up again!), we then spent the rest of the evening watching a series of Jackie Chan movies (in Vietnamese!). How romantic!

The next day we stopped at an island and took a bike ride through the village and visited another cave before heading back to the boat for lunch and some kayaking.

After the boat trip we spent another day in Hanoi before taking a sleeper bus (an experience in itself!) to Hoi An.

---

Photos

You Wanna Buy Pineapple??
The street seller litterally forced Hayley to put this on and have a photo!

Singing in the Rain!
Very wet weather in Hanoi

Pile Up!
Boat Jam at Halong Bay

Floating Village
One of the many floating villages around Halong Bay

Hanoi Madness
It was quite hairy crossing the roads in Hanoi due to the thousands of Mopeds