and we're still in Hanoi!!!!

Yesterday's trip to halong bay started out early - bus full of Malaysian tourists and us. Little common language. Driver spoke no english at all. 4.5 hours later we arrived in Halong Bay, to find that there was a hurricane warning and the overnight trips were all cancelled. So, after a lengthy wait, we were divided into various other combinations of ethnicities, and got on little open tender boats to get to the junk we were booked on. On board, lunch was served (pretty nice too) and then we cruised around the inner part of Halong bay, past a floating village with its own school, and to a huge limestone cave which was discovered onlyl in 1993. We got off the junk by the same means, queued for the cave tour, did that, waited for the tender, back on the junk, and back on to a bus. this time with French, Swiss and US kids (well, by our standards) for the long drive back to Hanoi. Interesting conversations on the way back, some of the US crew worked for various ngos or volunteer outfits in hanoi and elsewhere, so we laerned a lot about those operations in this region. Finally back to hotel about 10, for a very very late dinner. Today, I was overcome by something and stayed in all day. Tonight we get the train to Hue.