Halong Bay

These are more photos from our tour of Halong Bay on our "junk"--a great way to start our trip/

At beach

Well we just played beach soccer with some brits/germans... so much fun!! I scored some goals!!!! The drivers here are crazy!!!! "They lean on there horns" Going to get a massage. Only $16 for 90 min!!!! The exchange rate is 20'000 dong ≈ $1. 100'000 ≈ $5. We are at a great resort but we got here on a boat.(a junk). We went swimming/boating. I did a front/back flip. On the boat they had a lot of sea food. I liked it. Our room is great here. A bath room, 2 beds. On the junk we went kayaking . Well we went all over. Over there fish farming is really popular. We also went in/ under these arches of rock into lagoons. Lots of islands where we were. (3,000) The are all really big. Cen chow in Vietnamese means hi, hello. Tomorrow is 2011!!!!! Signing off! :)

Belle

Ohhhh--Myyyy--Goodness! I'm writing our first post as the boys are on the beach at Cat Ba island playing soccer. It is New Year's Eve. We made it safely to Vietnam!!! We had a 30 hour trip that went very smoothly and got to Hanoi at 1am. Our driver was there waiting for us and despite waking our hotel folks, they kindly met us at the dark, charming and quiet alley that led us to our charming guest house in the old quarter of Hanoi. Minimal sleep (I can't believe how resilient and wonderful a traveler Jesse is... better than me) for us before we awoke to meet our mini-trip of 7 -3 Aussi gals and 1 fellow from Japan. We drove to the east coast viewing the country side and we started our trip on Halong Bay. The photos tell the story... I'm still pinching myself here. We swam last night and early this morning off our "junk" and the water is green, clear and very salty. Jesse fished off the boat for squid and we actually caught a few. Happy New Year to everyone... thank you for your prayers getting us here safely. Duncan and Jesse having a ball-