Merry Christmas Everyone!

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Thanks everyone for your messages, its great to hear from you all and apologies to the Vietnamese Family that Simon rang instead of Katie, something to do with International Dialing Codes!!!! The funny thing was that Simon thought that Katie was messing around and putting on a Vietnamese accent He He He. How do we get time to do the blog? We don't sleep!!!

Christmas Eve here was amazing. We had been recommended a restaurant called Hanoi Garden and off we went on a mission to find it.....hhhhmmm a mission it was, we went out without the map and ended up walking in circles for over an hour before we finally found it! It was well worth the marathon walk as the food was amazing. We came out full to the brim and more than a little tipsy for the princely sum of £15.00. On our travels to the restaurant we had come across a HUGE gathering of people around a catherdral like church. The church was lit up beautifully and there was carol singing, until you have heard the vietnamese sing 'Away in a Manger' or Wham's 'Last Christmas' you havn't lived. If someone can forward this on to Simon Cowell I am sure that the next series of X Factor will be live and direct from Hanoi!!!! The atmosphere was electric, there were thousands of people there, no one was drunk or aggressive and there was just a handful of police, it was a lovely way to see Christmas in.

Christmas morning began early as we were being collected at our hotel at 8am for the drive to Halong Bay. We had been warned that it was a scary ride but hey we've been to Kenya, nothing is scaryier than that!!! The drive was lovely, we got to see so much of the countryside, the 3 hours went by pretty quickly and we were soon in Halong Bay. In Vietnam we have discovered that the way to drive is to choose which ever side of the road you feel like driving on and just constantly honk your horn, on the whole this seems to work quite well, apart from when large orange lorrys, driven by someone who looks as though they may have had a Yorkie too many, decides that his horn is louder than yours and is not moving over.

We boarded the Emeraude and we were not disappointed. It was fantastic. The cabin was beautiful with fresh flowers and cookies on our pillows. The shower and the toilet were in the same 'closet' but once we overcame not using the facilities at the same time, the toilet paper stayed dry!!!

After we had had a fantastic seafood lunch we boarded the tender to take us to shore to explore the caves, they were very pretty, thats about all you can say about caves really, they were pretty!!!

We returned to the boat and we decided that we would go kyacking. After the little vietnamese man had adjusted the life jacket several times to fit Simon (you must remember these people are tiny!) we pushed off. As we did Simon asked me if I had ever been before, no was my reply.....and you?....no came back Simon's reply....oh dear..... well I tried but apparently a bit too hard, I was either paddling too hard, kept missing the water totally or just skimming it and totally soaked Simon! I kept hitting my knuckles on the sides and I tried to turn around and show Si my sore hands and nearly capsized the boat!!!! not a born natural I think!!! It was still great fund and we ventured through a small cave/opening and found ourselves in a totally deserted lagoon, it was totally silent and so beautiful.... that is until half a dozen or so people followed us in!! well we had our 5 minutes

We met up with some lovely americans on the boat. A couple of sisters (Joyce & Jean) from San Fransisco and another couple (Darcy & Dana) from the same neighbourhood but didn't travel together We ended up spending the evening together, having a great laugh and drinking far more than we should of!!! This was very evident on Boxing Morning when we rose at 6am to participate in Tai Chi on the deck!!! I sat it out not surprisingly but Simon (the ninja) did take part much to everyone else's amusement.... pictures to follow, it was very very funny!!!!

We had another interesting drive back to Hanoi and we are meeting up with our new American friends later for some dinner and maybe a couple of drinks.

Hope you are all having a great Christmas, ours is fantastic..... doesn't mean that we don't miss you all though xxxx

Lots of Love

Nikola & Simon xxx

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Comments

[Ma and Pa]

Your Journey
Just another fantastic day for you - you seem to be coping well on adrenalin if not sleep!!! It all seems to be going to plan - the caterpillar has not put you off your food - well done for going local. We really are enjoying your blogs - how do you find the time to do them - keep them coming as long as they do not interfere with whatever you want to do. Ma and Pa