After an early start we crossed the border into Vietnam. The first thing that strikes you is the bustle. Horns blare for fun and vehicles of all sizes play chicken with one another. Taking over into oncoming traffic is a regular thing, it is just accepted that people will move over. The biggest vehicle always wins. Watching our mini-bus take over a truck into a stream of traffic was bloody frightening, we had to stop watching the road.

It was a long drive and we over nighted in the city Ninh Binh (not like the one in Oz!) on our way to Halong Bay, which means "Bay of the Descending Dragon", for a day and night on a boat cruising around cluster of monolithic limestone islands that jut out of the water like giant spears. It is truly spectacular and its understandable why this is World Heritage listed by UNESCO, very unique. Our boat, or junk, was huge, three storeys. Dpwnstairs for the en-suite cabins, the middle floor for eating, dining and singing karaoke, will come to that, and the top floor for catching rays. About 30 metres long, 10 metres wide for just 8 backpackers this was severe luxury, we felt like kings even before they served us the most delicious fresh seafood, huge dinner and hearty breakfasts.

As we sailed around the wonderful scenery we passed floating fishing villages that stand at the foot of some of the sheer cliff faces of the islands as locals ply the shallow waters for 200 species of fish. Many of the giant rocks are hollow with giant caves within. Hang Dau Go (Wooden Stakes Cave) is the largest and we stopped off with many of the other junks to file into the three gigantic chambers. It contains huge stalagmites and stalactites, lit in different colours. There are lots of interesting shaped rocks that look like different animals and which we were told resembled a giant finger but to us it looked like something quite different.

After a dip we had a big party on the boat, well as big as it can be with 8 tourists, 2 guides and the crew, one of which cranked up a karaoke machine. One of our guides crooned the most horrendous version of Harry Nilsen's "I Can't Live If Living Is Without You" but it got us in jovial mood. Despite everyone saying they wouldn't have a go, sure enough after an hour or two everyone was rocking out. This was followed by a marathon cards session, which ended at something AM. The next day with cloudy minds we sailed back to port through the early morning mist.

Next stop Hanoi.