Day 13 Ha Long Bay

Today we woke up early to leave Hanoi to head over to Ha Long Bay, the journey took 3.5 hrs in a mini van as we weaved through the paddy fields of northern Vietnam, the roads become less chaotic, although the driving habits do take some getting used to. A very interesting landscape

We got speaking to the other passengers, an American couple who are teaching in china and having a break. And an Australian couple, The few Australians that we have met on our way down so far, seem to get quite put out that we have chosen Melbourne as our first settling point rather than their own town or city, and then go into why their city is so great... which is good.... not sure I have ever had such loyalty for my UK city, so we look forward to meeting people from Melbourne to tell us what a great decision we have made!

We were met at the harbour by our guide who is a native of the floating villages found in the bay, he was very difficult to understand and quite abrupt.. I wondered whether he was going to make the trip enjoyable or not.

We joined our Junk via the tender, and first impressions were extremely good. We were given two bedrooms with adjoining door, which was more than we had booked, and the boat was half full. The kids were very excited and loved the idea of a few days on the boat. whilst they were blown away by the chaos of Hanoi, they were very happy to leave.

We had a fantastic lunch, and the kids are now freely eating the food (well as much as can be expected) – both of them tucked into a fish noodle soup that they enjoyed, which was beyond Stephs and my expectations for the trip.. and both tried the calamari!

We were taken to see some caves and then onto a beach in the afternoon, the bossy guide was getting a little bit irritating, however he did redeem himself a bit when he decided not to wait for some late returnees to the boat at the beach, and so left them - The bossy guide was starting to work in our favour!

We had a very enjoyable evening and got chatting to some Kiwi Honeymooners Toby and Jo, who got Steph and I thinking about making a jump over to New Zealand for a visit as soon as possible.

They also got me thinking about my teeth (sorry to mention it!). I have always feared the lower standard of dentistry, you would assume to receive in this part of the world, yet Toby specifically sought out a Dentist to Thailand to replace all his fillings and do a complete make over of his mouth as the understanding in New Zealand is the dentistry is extremely good, but not only that, it is a fraction of the price. So hopefully he is going to email me the dentists details, as my front tooth filling from the chip I got in spain has fallen out!... and maybe they can sort the rest out.

To think they go on dentistry holidays! - strewth! the thought of it!!