I have finally mastered the art of tranferring pictures from a digital camera to a laptop without Ian's assistance.... and it only took me the better part of a month to learn. However, I have selected just a few pictures from the vacation that Maebh and I took to Hanoi in June of this year. During our stay in Hanoi we took a two day trip around the world heritage site of Halong Bay. The journey was magnificent as watching the enormous limestone islets shoot from water that ranged from blue to rather lagoon like green was awe inducing. The first picture was taken at 6am from the top deck of our junk boat. We slept over night on the junk, but due to intense heat in the cabins I got up early to get some air. The boats are those of local fishermen going to work, travelling through the inlets and bays of Halong Bay.

The second picture is one that I am particularly proud of and should I ever come across a photo competition for 'Those That Have Been To Vietnam And Have Great Pictures To Prove It', I have every intention of entering and winning. The area where I took this picture is the site of the our incident with the local armed forces. The dirt path was a long way off from achieving road status and barely wide enough for a honda 50, yet our tour bus and the army jeeps(we presume they were training in the area), decided they could of course make it down the path at the same time. It was not to be, resulting in the jeep and tour bus scraping sides. Not very enjoyable for the Danish guy sitting beside me (window side),as he was afforded an up close and personal view of the little lake due to the force from the army jeep, pushing our bus closer and closer to the edge of said lake. Of course, did the army jeeps stop after mangling the tour bus. NO. The result of that was seeing our bus driver give chase, disappear around the corner, leaving us alone, in the middle of nowhere with a bus. He eventually came back. Minus an apology from the army. At least my picture is nice.

Picture 3 speaks for itself really. It was taken at the Hanoi War Museum at the base of the Cot Co Flag Tower. What you can see in the picture is military waste. If I knew my war crafts I would list the names of those on display, but, I don't. I did read what they all were at the time, but I blame the heat for erasing all war related information from my head. ( I do believe there were MIG's there though............)

Maebh and I also visited the Temple of Literature which was a magnificent example of Vietnamese architecture. Picture 4 is taken from the interior of one of the buildings. I was quite favouring the inside to outside pictures instead of the outside to inside ones, as the intense afternoon heat was playing havoc with little fragile me. So, I sought refuge in the cool (ish) indoor environment.

While sailing around Halong Bay we stopped at one of the caves that are quite common around the area. The cave that we visited was illuminated with a broad spectrum of colours, some so blinding it was rather difficult to see the rock facing. However, I have my doubts as to whether or not the interior of the caves are genuine, seeing as some of the rock formations looked rather unnatural and did not have the texture one associates with caves. Nevertheless, the interiors were certainly interesting to view. The final picture shows the orange illumination in contrast to the natural light stealing in from an opening.