Hi everyone

We are still having a fab time. Last night we went to. Traditional Vietnamese restaurant and had the most delicious food ever. We sat on a little balcony in the candlelight it was so beautiful. Everyone here thinks Dave’s wonderful because of his shape and they all call him laughing Buddha ha ha. At 7 am we were driven to halong bay and stopped off at a craft centre that teaches and employs disabled young people to paint and embroider etc for tourists to buy and for export. There were lovely things there and it wS nice to see the young people feeling good about themselves because normally they would just die in an orphanage but here they have lovely homes and friends and a job. We arrive at halong bay at about 11 and boarded a lovely old boat callEd a junk. It was very nicely decorated with lanterns floweres and lovely teak wood everywhere  when we got to our cabin ( only 10 on the ship) our bed was covered in red rose petals and a gorgeous red rose and gypsophila bouquet and chocolate ( I could get used to this!!) we then had afab 6  purse lunch and set sail for the floating fishing village where little boats filled with all sorts of food and goods float around selling things to people who

I’ve in little boat houses. They have a temple and a floating school which is sponsored by an Australian town. It is so smal, only one classroom that children have to take it in turns to be taught. We then went back to the boAt in our little row boat for a demonstration of food carving. I can now make flowers and a swan from apples carrots and peppers. The dinner was a lovely as the lunch and after happy hour we watched the top gear programme they filmed in Vietnam. It seemed so different watching it again after we had been to so many of the places.today we did ti chi ( exersices) on the deck at 7 am then went to a huge cave. We had to climb up 400 steps and down 500 ( dave couldn’t go because of his achy knees and hangover from happy hours!) the cave had stalagmites and stalagtites and was really awesome. Then we had breakfast before leaving the boat at 10.30 for our trip to Haiphong   We went to a little village and saw a cat and dog meat shop! A beautiful lake where all the frogs sang and there were lots of water lilies, it was very pretty but I prefer to live in walderslade. From there we went to the airport which took 2 hours only to find that our flight was cancelled and we had to drive another 3 hours to the next airport which we are arriving at now so I keep my fingers crossed that we can get a flight. I will let you know!  We have met some lovely people and had lots of laughs. Some people come from Orpington and some from Arlington!!! Some Australia too.