We jumped off the train in the morning and took a bus straight down to Halong Bay, where we boarded one of those Junk boats to cruise around the bay and marvel at dozens of islands, caves and little floating fishing villages. We stayed overnight on the boat and headed towards Cat Ba Island in the morning, hiked around the island, climbed up the peak and did a kayak tour to Monkey Island ( I didn't tip over this time- that's a first!!) in the afternoon, which left us pretty exhausted in the evening. We planned to go out for a drink or two, but we ended up having a karaoke night with some japanese guys - the mic went around the table and when this crazy vietnamese guy snatched it away to sing one more french chanson we entertained ourselves with magic tricks ( the japanese we've named "dangermouse" had a pretty amazing one, he could make 2 coins out of two coins, better then letting a bottle of beer disappear under the table) - HILARIOUS!!!!!! We left Cat Ba Island the next day, headed back to Ha noi once more to catch the overnight train to Hue. We were joined by a german doctor and his vietnamese cousin, which we had met on the Halong trip - which means we now have our private emergency surgeon and a vietnamese travelguide/translator/bargainer in our team - could we have done any better???? We tried to make our way out of the train station, which was difficult because you had to squeeze through hundreds of people who tried to convince you to stay at their hotel, it felt like being a popstar for a day. We ended up right across Thu's Cafe on THU wheels, which became our "base" in Hue. We went on a motorbike trip with Thu's brothers the next day to see the the surrounding of Hue... ricefields, little villages, people producing insence sticks, temples with praying monks, royal tombs, pagodas and the citadel- a fantastic trip. In the afternoon we got some bicycles and cycled around Hue once more, just to experience the afternoon traffic on a bike, turning left on a street with several lanes (crossing several lanes with oncoming motorbikes and other vehicles) was quite an adventure. We left Hue this morning and took a bus to Hoi An, which seemes to be a lovely relaxed place, I just loved walking through the old city this afternoon.