GOOOD MORNING VIETNAM!

Vietnam is SO hot in the summer. VERY humid and about 45 degrees a day (actually, that may just be in the north, but we're in the north right now)
We've been here for... 5 days or something and boy does time fly when you're havin fun!

The travel to get here was hot, sweaty, and all together miserable and the Vietnam/China border took nearly an eternity (with no AC)...

Let's focus on the good, grand and amazing!

We took a 3 day trip to Ha Long Bay (which was on the list for one of the 7 wonders, but somehow didn't make it). And let me tell you, it was BEAUTIFUL!

We spent the first day and night on a pirate ship (well, it looked like a pirate ship!) with some new and AMAZING friends!!

The day was awesome and included exploring caves, kayaking, swimming in the salty salty sea, and jumping from heights into water I NEVER would've thought I would do! (and besides the wedgie it was tres fantastique!)

Let's skip over the night on the boat sleeping because that was the shortest/worse sleep of the trip thus far.

Day 2 was more fun on the boat, and arriving at Cat Ba island for some trekking in 1000000 degree heat (I have seriously never sweat that much in my whole life.. I thought I would die... thank goodness for the 3 litres of water Stu and I brought). We climbed a watch tower that was 75 steps of rusting something and it was swaying back and forth as we climbed. It said maximum 5 people and there were about 15 of us up there... yikes! The view was amazing though and somehow, after all our crazy adventures, I wasn't even scared!

The afternoon held a trip to Monkey Island that had a beach comparable to those in Maui and BIG BIG wild monkeys in the forest of the island! It was hilarious... a kid got grabbed by one of the big monkeys (it was quite scarry actually!) and I was scared to walk by the big monkey... but it was VERY cute!!! We took a video of the monkey watching people walk by. We swam, etc, got back on our boat and back to Cat ba island.

In the evening we partied with our friends and the next day headed back here.

We're in the same hostel now as a couple of law students from Toronto that we hung out with on our trip to HaLong and tonight we're heading with them on a night bus to the Central Coast (Hue, pronounced 'Hue-ay') which is supposed to be historical and beautiful!

Ok! Time for breakfast! Love you all!