Halong, Sapa and 3 days in Hanoi

Hi folks, this is just a quick update on our last few days so apologies for the brevity and lack of pics......

We are now back in Hanoi after a very busy old week - first of all we arrived in Hanoi and stayed for one night (even managed to squeeze in a run around the lake in the old quarter). Then it was time to get busy again with our final sightseeing itinerary.

Due to a diminishing amount of available time we bucked our usual D.I.Y approach and booked some tours to Halong Bay and Sapa. Halong bay is a stunning world heritage site and our tour involved staying overnight in an old style Junk. it was a really brilliant trip albeit probably a little bit quick. During the tour we did some kayaking, jumping off of the junk and visited the "amazing" cave (formerly known as the surprising cave apparenty). One of the funniest things about this tour was that almost all the food was shellfish and with my uncertainty whether I have developed an allergy or not I avoided it - unfortunately for me however that meant my menu for meals consisted of tofu, tofu and some more tofu. It also meant that for the convenience of the staff (so they made sure we go the right meals) Katie and I had to sit closely to an overweight, pale, vegeterian psychiatrist from Austria who looked utterly miserable and she really didn't utter more than two words the whole time (all in all a wonderful advert for not being a vegetarian)

We got back to Hanoi and we had four hours to wait before our trip to Sapa began. Sapa is an old town settled by French and is quite far North (close to the Chinese border). our tour began with a sleeper train which wasn't too bad (the highlight of which is hiking the length of the train many times with Simon and Nadine from Germany in search for the mythical restaurant car and a cold beer - I am considering selling the rights of this adventure story to Peter Jackson) we then trekked most of the first day to a few local villages (followed everywhere by villagers whose mantra is "you buy something for me", "good for you" etc etc.) The trek was stunning and we got some really nice weather for it - as part of our tour we had elected for a homestay where a group all come together and sleep in a quite traditional and basic villagers house. This wasn't the kind of homesetay I imagined where we would sit with the family and sing songs etc but in fact much more of a youth hostel feel with all the foreign guests talking to each other and drinking beer. It was a good time and we spent a lot of time trying to list famous Dutch, French and Scottish people. The vote for the most well known Scottish person with some of the Dutch youth? Paulo Nutini........oh dear.

The second day in Sapa involved another long trek and finished with a heavy rain, muddy shoes, a waterfall and a sleeper train back to Hanoi. We arrived back at 5am this morning and are now staying in the medallion hotel in Hanoi for three nights of luxury and relaxation before the trip home.

I should mention that one of the great benefits of doing a tour like we did is meeting like minded people and making some new friends. Particular mention must go to Nadine and Simon (Simon works in sport) from Germany, Sylvain (sports coach) and Milla (teacher) from France and Shane from Manchester. All great people who we hope to see again some day.

So our time away from home is almost at an end - you'll be glad to hear we are very much looking forward to it and can't wait to see everyone again. Unfortunately because we won't have jobs you will all have to feed us and look after us for as long as it takes for us to get on our feet again - perhaps you cuold all get together and put together a roster for accomodation and meals ;o)

You will also be glad to hear that we have carried our waterproof jackets all the way from New Zealand because we are almost guaranteed to need them when we walk out the door of Glasgow Airport on the 2nd of August.

All the best, see you all soon,

SB & KO.