Hanoi Sports Hotel

... one hour to<br>explore one of the most beautiful and biggest caves on the Bay. Back to the junk our time is visiting fishing village. You can enjoy swimming or kayaking at Hang Trong or enjoy sunbathing on board with cool drinks or relax over on board beauty spa services and massage. <br><br>In the evening, a luxury Vietnamese dinner buffet and light entertainment will be ...

... lunch when we arrived, comfortable cabins below deck with ensuite facilities, and a large open top deck with loungers where one could recline and take in the passing view. The array of green-topped monoliths filled the horizon, towering high overhead when the boat approached close. The conditions here are frequently hazy, and the day made no exception for us, which leant the bay a mystical air with a scene of boats silhouetted against the muted ...

... to stay for at least a year in Hanoi.<br><br>On the evening Gareth went off with a few of the teachers, but I wanted a quiet night so just went to a local pub to watch the Chelsea v Liverpool match. Typically I found an Irish bar and sat to enjoy the game. There I got chatting to a couple of locals who were learning English (something, it seems, not a lot of Vietnamese want to do) and wanted to practice with me. For the second half they took ...

... ction. They were known *s "pir*tes" the rest of the night, *nd we *ll h*d fun with it.<br> The next morning we set off to our priv*te isl*nd for the second d*y/night of the trip. The second d*y w*s more rel*xing, just l*ying on the be*ch, re*ding in h*mmocks, *nd swimming *round. Things didn't get too exciting until *n Americ*n who runs the tubing *nd w*kebo*rding p*rt of the tour got completely h*mmered. His job w*s to t*ke people on the ...

... Binh, which is where Suzanna will pick things up from. It&#8217;s just left for me to say thanks very much to Linda and Carly and my Mum and Dad for taking the time to visit us. We had a great time with them and are very grateful for the generosity they showed us. They made us feel like millionaires!! Literally in fact, as they gave us their leftover Dong and we are also very grateful for that as well. <br><br> Take care everyone and see you very soon now.<br><br> tobs and Suzanna<br><br> xx

... fan-only room from the day before. We declined that, and asked about the hotel we had just come from, but were told that it was booked solid already.<br><br>So we decided to leave our packs at the guesthouse and go searching around. We must have gone into around 10 hotels and guest houses looking for an acceptable place, the prices ranged from $9 up to around $55. In the end we opted for a place very close to where we stayed the previous nights in Hanoi for $12 ...

... little bit of French too - as much as I could recall - and then bought 'Mr Nice', the Howard Marks autobiography - a great book if no-one's read it. He was the biggest ever marijuana dealer in the 70s and 80s, and had something like 80 alter egos and a few dozen businesses. Got our gear onto the bus and had an hour to kill. We'd been dropped off in the centre of true Hanoi - Vietnamese cafes with small plastic chairs on the sidewalk. We ...

... feeling quite cold. On arrival in Hoa Binh we began the usual hunt for a hotel for the night. The guest house we tried wouldn't have anything to do with us so we assume it's simply a place for prostitutes. We tried 2 small hotels, the first one was asking 180,000 for a room worth 100,000 and the other, even worse, was asking 250,000 for a room that was worth 80,000. I tried bargaining but to no avail, they would rather I walked ...

... tra', are actually the sound of 'cha', and these are just the examples I understand, it seems like a very difficult language to learn in comparison to Thai and Lao. But, English is even more widespread here, so I've yet to run into any problems, but it is nice to learn a bit of the language to at least show them that you are not an American. That night I went to see the Water Puppetry at the Theater by the lake. It was a very beautiful show, the puppeteers are very skilled, a waist deep ...