Vietnam has been an interesting 3 weeks. I started my tour in Hanoi, which is in the North of Vietnam. Our tour group was 12 people in total plus our tour leader Krista. I arrived late and met my roommate Sean at the airport. We were then taken to our hotel after being picked up from the airport. We managed to hook up with Krista and spent the latter part of the evening sitting on the sidewalk on little plastic chairs drinking glasses of beer for 15p while the city of Hanoi buzzed around us. There are 4 million people in Hanoi and 2 million scooters, so it gets very busy on the streets. There also appears to be no rules either and yet everyone survives. I have seen no accidents during my 3 weeks here. When you cross a street all you do is walk confidently and the riders seem to duck behind or in front of you. He who hesitates is lost! Everyone in the group has got on well. We do have a French Canadian with us who unfortunately speaks very little English???? So it was difficult to get him integrated in the group. He did however provide us with entertainment when he drank too much and tried to stop the Hanoi traffic one night. I don’t know how, but he managed to survive.Our group left Hanoi for a trek in the Hoah Binh province west of Hanoi. This was not as strenuous as the tour information suggested. It was a mere walk with daypacks but when the heat got up during the day it did become a little sweaty. We stayed with some of the White Thai minority families and all shared the same eating and sleeping space. It was a great way to get to know everyone and we played cards to keep ourselves entertained. Who ever lost at cards had to down a shot glass of rice wine (56% alcohol). The wine is pretty potent and tasted vile. I did manage to lose a few times though :-) The second day of the trek we walked for about 3.5 hours. Along the way we had a break and I found a kitten. It was very thin and in bad condition. I felt so sorry for it. I could fit it in the palm of my hand and it was just happy to just lie there and purr while I stroked it and gave it some love and attention. I could not take it with me but at least it got some TLC for a little while. It was great to be out in the countryside and away from the manic city life. The second night our guide set-up a volleyball match between us and the local police force. We arrived there and were given a shot of rice wine to start the game. Woohoo!! Needless to say these guys do nothing but play volleyball all day, and we go our butts kicked big time. Locals 1 - Tourists 0. After the hill trek we went back to Hanoi and met some more people who were joining the tour. We then headed off to Halong Bay. Here we boarded a junk and had the whole boat to ourselves. We ate a lot of seafood onboard. The landscape we sailed through is a karst landscape and so you have all these pinnacles that stick out. It looks pretty impressive. We visited Surprise Cave, which was enormous with beautiful stalactites and stalagmites. The cave was well lit and paths created to avoid more damage to the cave. The cave was much better than the one visited in China. Even though it was pricey, the cold beer at the top was great. Later that afternoon we went out kayaking. It was a short paddle to one of the islands that had a beach. We climbed up to the top of the pinnacle and had a great view of the sunset. Vari & myself paddled back to the boat and then messed around diving off the boat into the water. I put my foot on the metal ladder & it slipped and unknown at the time split the skin between my big toe and the next one. I carried on swimming a while longer. It was only after I got out that I realised I was bleeding quite a lot. Krista had to play nurse and bandage it. That was my water sports over for a while. I realised that I had to get it healed in six days before we got to Whale Island, where I would be swimming again.