Hanoi and Halong Bay

We flew into Vietnam Tuesday evening and made our way to a cheap room in a very vertical building. In fact it wasn't until we had walked up the five flights of stairs that we understood why we were paying five bucks a night. It wasn't really a room at all, but a roof top shed with a plywood box and a curtain for a door. However Brett seemed to like the room, and i put it down to part of the experience. All night the wind howled and the traffic honked as we slumber under the blankets.
We were awoken by roosters (where on earth these roosters were I have no idea) and peak hour traffic, which finally coerced us out of bed and downstairs to the little living/kitchen/foyer/luggagestorage/internet cafe. As we ate out buttered baguettes we browsed our guidebook only to discover we had slept in to late to see Uncle HO. Instead we visited the Museum of Ethnology which was a well presented display of the many ethnicities of Vietnam as well as the transformation through the early communist years. Around the grounds we many examples of village huts and houses from around the country. Compared to the diaramas in Lao with their steelwool trees this was impressive and well translated too.
Unfortunately we have been suffering from some tummybug stuff so the rest of the day was spent in the sanctity of the new hotel room we got. The guesthouse attendant who lived in the kitchen/living room of the first guesthouse was organising all our travel for vietnam and our tour to Ha Long Bay. That evening we returned to get our passports from her only to stumble upon a birthday party for a Canadian girl staying their. We joined in on the celebrations which was a welcome distraction from unsettled bellies.
The next morning we had to leave early for our Ha Long Bay trip. It was a three hours on the mini bus to the coast. Then we boarded our boat and headed towards some caves. They were a tad touristy but pretty cool. They liked to name all the rock formations even if it was somewhat obscure eg. this is a buddha, this is a turtle and this we call a finger but you can decide for yourself giggle giggle. Next they took us to a look out island which brett climbed but i passed (in my defence i have made an effort on all other climbing, and it wasn't as though you couldn't see the islands all around you). After dinner we played cards and learnt a game that Brett says he'll actually want to play again. There were your usual sprinkle of Australians and Poms and a group of Israelis. They were all nice and the old British guy taught the card game. We slept on the boat ontop of the engine (thankfully it was turned off we every. The next day we landed at Cat Ba Island and we went Kayaking, which was fun as we got to explore at our our own pace. Then we went back to Cat Ba Island, which felt a bit like a ghost town because it is winter and outside peak time. The next morning we caught a boat back to the mainland and bussed back to Hanoi, where we were both feeling pretty crappy, so we watched national geographic channel all evening.
The next day, feeling a little better, we finally got to see Uncle Ho, which was a bit wierd, he looked a bit more alive than we'd expected. From there it was onto the Temple of Literature, which was Vietnam's first university, set in a series of five courtyards. So now we are waiting until we have to go to the train station, where we leave at 7 tonight, and will arrive in Hue in the morning.