:: zone3 ::

Sunday was a day on getting use to the timezone (and temp) change. A nice long massage helped with tight muscles and a pleasant walk around te lank in the centre of Hanoi was a great way to get moving.

The city seems a little less crazy than the last time I was here. Quite a few more cars, squeezed in among the endless motorbikes racing around.

Monday it was off to Ha Long bay. It's about a four hour bus ride. The bus is mostly tourists, they go hotel to hotel to pick them up. 
After jumping in, on to the next hotel to pick up a group of tourist that shouldn't be out of their own country... Was a group of about 6-7, and with them on board was going to be a pretty full and cozy small bus, but fine for a couple of hours. Once the first was aboard they started complaining it was 'unacceptable' and complaining to the driver loudly. Thankfully they decided to get off, most likely to whine to the tour operator.

I made Ha Long bay at the start of my trip on purpose as it nice and relaxing just cruising around o a Chinese style junk boat for the afternoon with lunch and dinner on board. Nice to begin a holiday with.

After breakfast on board the boat on Tuesday it was on to Cat Ba island, the largest island in the Ha Long bay area.
Seemed like a good idea to get a bike ride/tour up to the highest point of the island. I had been thinking of walking up there, but in the heat coming from winter that wasn't going to work.

Once up there, found along the ridge line, along with an amazing view, a series of old gun emplacements and lookouts from the Vietnam war. Realised the island was likely to be a great anti aircraft site for planes on bombing runs too Hanoi. Today joining the gum emplacements are a collection of cell and microwave towers signalling a more modern time...

Being a fishing island, there is a live fish at pretty much every place you can eat, waiting to be selected. Think it will be seafood for dinner...