Ha Long and back again.

Ha Long Bay

Charissa, Paula and Steve on the transport boat.

Charissa and I on the boat.

Ha Long Bay at night.

So here we are back in Ha Noi waiting till we head to Laos and the next stage of the journey. We have had a blast in the north of Vietnam, the capital city is something else. So much depth of history and culture packed in to the narrow, bustling streets of the old quarter. The stimulation to all the senses has been almost overwhelming at times, but we have thoroughly enjoyed it.

We returned from a boat tour to Ha Long Bay yesterday, what an experience. It was so surreal, thousands of islands jutting up out of the sea like ice bergs floating along. The tour took us through the islands to the bay where we anchored for the night, from there we were taken to a massive cave in one of the islands (like nothing either of us had ever seen before, absolutely mind blowing is size). When we returned from the cave we were put on the kayaks and led off to a lagoon with in one of the islands ( led isn't exactly accurate as our guide did not wait for us and did not seem to care whether we were safe or not), again it was absolutely breath taking. We were even lucky enough to be visited by a family of local monkeys that lived on the cliff of the lagoon, so cool;-p.

The rest of the evening was spent eating and relaxing, which was not hard to do as the food was great and the company was amazing. We even managed to get a little squid jigging in, no trophy squid though:-(. The following day we cruised back through the islands, stopping of few times to take in the sheer beauty of it all. We were then whisked into a mini bus to return to Ha Noi. It was a amazing trip, such a cool way to finish of Vietnam.

The next two days will be spent just taking in the food, culture and some shopping, as our visas run out tomorrow:-(. Tomorrow we catch a flight to Vientiane in the south of Laos, from there we will plot our route through Laos. We found a cheap plain flight and figured that rather than going through another 18 hour bus ride we would rather spend the extra money and get there with no hassles. And so we say "good by" to Vietnam.

Hope you are all doing well, all our love.

kieran and charissa