Monday, October 16, 2006

A Load of Junk

Where then? Back on another plane, through Bangkok (actually in all, we went through Bangkok 4 times) to Vietnam. Flew in Hanoi late in the evening, caught a taxi into the city and stayed the night at one of the world's ugliest hotels. The Hotel Melia looks, from the outside, much like one of those blue, red and white woven plastic bags vagrants use when collecting cans from bins ... Classy! Inside the decor is even more horrific, managing to mix ugly extravagance with chaotic bad taste almost effortlessly. Impressive.

Next morning we caught a bus to Halong bay and spent two nights out on the bay sleeping on a junk. The accomodation was a little more rustic than some of our other digs during our honeymoon, but not appalling. There were a total of 10 guest (including us) on the boat, and 5 staff, so we were pretty well looked after


And the bay is absolutely ravishing. Hundreds of small but precipitous limestone islands jutting out of the sea. Absolutely fantastic ...