We fly to Bangkok then sleep in the airport for a few hours (we can sleep anywhere now) before heading out the next morning to Hanoi in the north of Vietnam.We get a taxi when we arrive and see one of the classic scams in action, I have heard about it many times.The taxi driver pulled up to a hotel with a totally different name, the door of the car was opened and we are shown a piece of paper with our hotel on it.The driver had obviously phoned ahead with our hotel details to someone he knew and if we stayed there he would get a big commission.So annoying but I calmly said 'no' and pulled the door shut then as we arrived at the correct hotel the driver doubled the fare!What a chancer! Fortunately the owner of our hotel came outside and told the driver he'd get only the fare we agreed.Martin posts 'Good Morning Vietnam!' on facebook but it's more like good night as we go straight to sleep after a long nights travelling.We wake up late in the afternoon and head out for food, well....if we thought the roads in Thailand were busy they are nothing compared to Hanoi.Mopeds and motorbikes everywhere! On the road, parked on the pavement, driving on the pavement you can't move for them.We find a restaurant in the guidebook recommended for good steak called 'Le Pub' so we head there.We make a classic mistake and order our steaks medium forgetting that usually when abroad medium is actually rare, it was still mooing!!We went downstairs and bumped into an irish brother and sister we'd met in the airport queue, they were joined with another irish friend and we had a few drinks with them and chatted.One girl was away for several months and they were all well travelled, it was great sharing stories and ideas for places to visit.We left later than intended, on the street it was dark and you could walk on the pavement as the bikes were gone, hurrah!We didn't have a torch and it was difficult reading the map but we made it back to the hotel..... only to find the front door was chained up, we just looked at each other we didn't know what was going on!We chapped the glass door twice then started to get a bit worried, we tried again and as we banged the door we saw something moving in the darkness.A young girl was sleeping on a mat downstairs to let people in, that was a new one for us! The next day we were picked up early for our trip to Halong Bay, we drove for three hours before reaching our boat.The ship was beautiful and we were really pleased with our cabin, we had time to relax in the sunshine before lunch.We sat with a couple from London and a French man.The lunch served had a lot of sea food, Martin has been trying so many new foods since we left the UK that I wasn't surprised to see him enjoying crab and some huge prawns.In the afternoon we are taken to the 'amazing' caves, they really are!They are pretty spectacular, the rock formations are like big craters they wouldn't be out of place on the moon!It's kayaking next which neither of us have done before but the views are so stunning that we decide to give it a go.....what a laugh!It takes us a while to get the hang of it and there are junk boats coming from all angles that we need to dodge but it's actually really fun.We have time to relax on the top deck before a quick lesson in making spring rolls, rolling them is more difficult than it looks! After dinner we have a few more drinks on the top deck with Lisa and Alex from our table, they are lovely and give us some helpful tips for Cambodia.Before we head to bed we are joined by Duc our tour guide, he's pretty merry and gives me strict instructions to wear my hair down as it's more beautiful - he's hilarious!The next morning we head back to shore, as we pass through a floating village Duc tells us that there are fifty households and a school in the village it's difficult to imagine life how they live at sea.We are taken back to our hotel and agree to meet Alex and Lisa and an aussie couple we met on the boat later for drinks.We have booked tickets for the water puppet theatre, a traditional Vietnamese art form.The music is played on traditional instruments that you wouldn't recognise, the girls who are singing have lovely voices and the music is really enjoyable.The water puppets were interesting, the performances were originally for children with simple but traditional stories, it was an unusual piece of theatre let's put it that way!We met Alex, Lisa, Ebony and Jimmy in a pub called 'The Spot' we had a few drinks and really enjoyed the company we exchange info so we can keep in touch.The next day we are up early for a tour, I arranged for a student from Hanoi to show us around from an organisation called Hanoi Kids.The students do it voluntarily to practice their English and it's very highly rated on trip advisor.We are not disappointed, Trang (prounounced Chang) arrives promptly and after parking her motorbike we take a taxi to the Temple of Literature, it was a school for hundreds of years but today it is a museum with statues of all the prominent figures in the development of Vietnamese Education.It's really enjoyable being shown round in this way, Trang's English is excellent and she is able to answer our questions.She takes us to a prison which housed the Vietnamese prisioners who rebelled during the French occupation.The treatment the prisoners received is cruel beyond belief.It's a really interesting morning and I have learned a lot about Vietnam's history.We stop for lunch and Trang orders several dishes for us to share, the food is excellent and most surprising is the delicious ostrich meat!In the afternoon we go to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex, but we couldn't go in as his corpse was on holiday to Russia being rebalmed.Trang takes us around the other parts of the complex and we see the Presidential Palace and Ho Chi Minh's house on stilts.Finally we are shown the One Pillar Pagoda which was designed to represent a lotus blossom.It's really enjoyable as Trang is there to explain everything.We return to our hotel and say good bye to Trang, we swap email addresses so we can keep in touch with her.She's such a lovely girl.Before dinner, we go for a walk around the beaufitul Hoan Kiem Lake we see lots of young couples cuddled up and another group of people doing some salsa dancing, random!