The longest journey in the whole world I tell you guys!!! But we made it to Halong Bay....We got a sleeper train from Hoi An- Hanoi, that in it self took about 20 hours. It’s scary that in 20 hours you could travel from England almost as far as Australia! Still in Vietnam the trains are quite slow as there is only 1 track so trains have to pull over at specific points to let others through! Not quite British Rail!!!! The beds on the sleeper train are quite cramped and we had no chance of sitting up!After arriving in Hanoi we had to transfer to Halong Bay by bus..... This took a further 5 hours after all the chopping and changing! The bus journey was ok, about 35 locals squashed into a 15 seater bus! Thank goodness we had seats at the back and abit of room!!! When we arrived in Halong city we were dumped along this busy road and the bus just drove off and left us! "Where the hell are we?" was our first thought!! After crossing this busy road we got a taxi to the lively part of town known as Bhai Cai ....The taxi driver didn't have a clue where we wanted to go so we ended up over the other side of the bay.We looked in a few hotels, they all looked pretty empty so we spent the next half hour trying to get a taxi back to Bhai Cai...Once in the taxi we told the driver to take us to a local hotel which was in the Lonley Planet book..He also didn't have a clue where we wanted so he dropped us at this $250 a night Plaza Hotel..The bell boy quickly became our night in shinning armour and directed the cabbie to a cheap backpacker hotel....At about 9pm we finally arrived at a reasonable place to stay for the night-Yayyyyyy wooooo hooooooo!After a goodnights sleep we booked a 2 day boat cruise around Halong Bay, it leaves tomorrow (25/02/07) morning and the trip also includes our coach back to Hanoi which is great. I swear I will never take another sleeper train in Vietnam again hee hee!! Really looking forward to the boat cruise...the karst scenery looks lovely from our hotel, can’t wait!!!!