Despite the typhoons that have been slamming Vietnam for the past week I've managed to have a pretty good time in Hanoi and Halong Bay. I had only planned to spend a couple days in Hanoi, then I wanted to do two or three days in Halong Bay, which I've heard is the thing to do in Vietnam. I spent the first day in Hanoi tracking down the post office, where I spent far more than I could afford, then spending half my daily budget on sushi and gourmet french ice cream. I'll say this about Hanoi: it has some fantastic restaurants, and the french influence means that the desserts, coffee and pastry are divine. Then I wandered around the city's main lake and discovered the meaning behind Lonely Planet's joke about custom-made "Hello, Motobike?" shirts being so popular. Tracked down the "Hanoi Hilton", which had little about the "American War" but a lot of anti-French propoganda (which I suppose makes sense - it was originally a French colonial prison used to house political prisoners from "Indochine") and a guillotine.

The next day involved tracking down lunch at a recommended restaurant in the Old Quarter (guava lassi - yum!), dodging motobikes all the while. Traffic in Hanoi is rather infamous - it wouldn't be so bad if it were all cars, it's the motobikes that make it so awful. It's one thing to cross four lanes of traffic when it's cars and buses coming toward you in those four lanes; it's another thing entirely to cross four lanes of traffic when it dozens and dozens of motobikes that you have to dodge. It's a lot of vehicles to keep track of when trying not to get hit.

After all this, I walked over to the Temple of Literature, which was a lovely little oasis from the rest of busy, noisy Hanoi. It was also a little taste of China, which seemed much more familiar to me at this point than French-colonial Vietnam. Then I walked over to the Ho Chi Minh complex to check out his Mausoleum and the sorrounding grounds. Ho is in Russia now for maintenance, as he is every September - December, so I couldn't see him but I did see military drills taking place outside his tomb and the lovely little One-Pillar Pagoda. I tried to then book a tour to Halong Bay for the next day but was told that due to more typhoons no boats were going out at the time. Sigh. ONe more day in Hanoi. It was a lazy day. I mailed postcards, ate pho and more french desserts and wandered around the Old Quarter.

Finally, after three days in Hanoi I was able to make the trip to Halong Bay. I was a bit iffy about doing the two day tour - the weather had been awful the whole week (five people died the Sunday past when one of the junk boats capsized during a sudden storm, but I was told that was mainly due to the height of the boat - mine would be a much safer size) and if it was going to be just as bad I would rather have done just a day trip and saved the money, but on the off-chance that the weather turn a turn for the better I wanted to spend more time there. I'm glad I did. The weather was fantastic! We took a bus from Hanoi and arrived at the harbor just past noon. It was bright and sunny and the water was perfectly calm. We took a motorboat out to our junk and after a welcome drink we put our things away in our cabins. There were only a dozen people on the boat, two of whom were only there for a day trip, so it was a nicely-sized group. The cabins were also far nicer than I had expected. We went back up for lunch - all of the meals included a lot of fresh seafood, very good - as we cruised out to the bay. We dropped anchor in the middle of a beautiful lagoon surrounded by the leafy, limestone peaks the bay is famous for. Then we left the boat to explore a vast cave network. After we sailed over to a beach and spent the late afternoon enjoying the South China Sea. We went back to the boat for dinner and then went to sleep as the boat softly bobbed along.

The next moring we were up early for breakfast and kayaking. It was wonderful - there was no guide with us, we were just given the kayaks, told what sights were in the area and told to be back before a certain time. We had a lot of freedom that you don't often find on tours - perhaps because there were only six of us at this point. Rachel, a woman I met at my hostel in Hanoi, and I took our kayak around the area where our boat was anchored and over through a cave network into a small lagoon enclosed on all sides by the limestone peaks - the only way in and our was through that small cave. We spent the rest of our available time swimming around the lagoon and enjoying the sun. Then we went back to the boat to sail back to the main harbor. Having now ben to Halong Bay I can say that everyone who says it is the must-see attraction of Vietnam is absolutely correct. I wish I could have spent a week there. At the harbor we were (eventually) greeted by our bus back to Hanoi. Now I'm just waiting around - I leave in about 45 minutes to take a sleeper bus to Hue, the former Imperial city of Vietnam.