Hey hey! So...a little update: We finally had a couple of days of nice weather, which coincided nicely with our trip to Ha Long Bay. It was so beautiful - thousands of limestone rocks. surrounded by clear blue sea. Very pretty. We paid a little bit more for our trip than other people we'd met, but it was definately the right decision. Our boat was by far the nicest, and we were treated like royalty for two days. The food was soooo good - fresh king prawns and fish etc. And our group was really lovely too. Jacq: I spent a night on a boat! And after taking a couple of travel sickness pills, I was fine. So sailing here I come... After a suprisingly good night's sleep, we had an early breakfast and a few of us went kayaking. Dani, my roomy, wasn't exactly feeling the love for the kayake, so she passed, and I got a professional team mate instead. We stormed in front of the others to this secluded bay that, apart from the excessive number of jelly fish, was so lovely. Unfortunately in our (i mean my) rush to win, we didn't pay much attention to a terrified Laura and Lauren, who started struggling, and thought they were going to drift out to sea (they weren't in real danger, I swear). So me and my guide had to rush back and get them, and then drag their weight along with our own boat. It hurt. A lot. Yesterday afternoon we arrived back in Horrid Hanoi (I'm not a fan of this place), where, suprise suprise, it started raining. And I have never seen rain like it in my life. Within minutes the roads were flooded, and when I went outside for about 30 seconds I was drenched. Luckily it eased off in time for our excursion to the Water Puppets - something we were really excited about (so much so we extended our stay in Hanoi so not to miss it). We were expecting huge puppets coming out of the water in a colourful and exciting display. Instead we got to almost see these tiny wooden things move slowly backwards and forwards through the water for an hour. It was terrible. But it was worth going purely to see the faces of the Vietnamese in the audience - they loved it. A real demonstration of the difference in culture here. Today we're heading down south to Hoi An, which I'm really looking forward to mainly because the Lonely Planet guide says it's 'pedestrian friendly'. Anyone who's been to Hanoi will know what I mean. I'll keep you informed. xxx