Cat Ba - The ultimate sound effects collection

Well, we're now in Cat Ba. Halong Bay is AB FAB, I have SOOOO many photos and video clips (and now postcards...).
We spent the day doing a 14km trek today. Was pretty serious going. We spent the first three or four hours going up and down wonky concrete stairs (rocks with concrete between them). At the final summit we were at 600m (having started at sea level).
We then took a 10 minute detour (I think we were running ahead of schedule... coz' we're so buff) to clamber to the top of the final summit. That bit was uber tricky and on a few occasions I thought "What would OSH make of this?". The view was stunning, absolutely stunning. We spent 10 minutes or so up there (Coz' of the breeze)and then we clambered back down. From there it was a fairly straight forward trek down to the bottom of the valley where we found what looked like a regional school hut (read: thatched roof hut with scribbles on the wall). We walked a bit more, I fell down a hole... after avoiding injury through all of the dangerous bits... but no injury, just felt like an idiot.
We stopped at a village for lunch, more photos... it was breathtaking. The valley was surrounded by ranges and the plains were all rice paddies with buffalos grazing and everything. Lunch was spectacular, included the obligatory spring rolls of course, but also had fried peanuts (yumm!!!) one of the guys on the tour had a grandmother in Saigon and knew how to make the peanuts so we exchanged recipes ;-)
A bit more walking and a boat ride and we were back in Cat Ba (short interlude in the middle of the boat ride for some of the tour to jump in for a swim).
We have showered and gone for a walk along the promenade (listening to a sound effects sampler cd being played through the giant PA system and admiring the multitude of neon lights). Went further along the bay to the local houses and waved at all the kids (vietnamese kids are seriously cute!).
We managed to get some photos of the kids when a handful of them started buzzing around our legs gesturing for us to photograph them. The joys of digital cameras, we could photograph them and then instantly show them the photo, they thought that was wonderful.
Bought some postcards off two girls on the promenade, they were an absolute rip off but the story that went with the sale was well worth the extra :-) Apparently I was singlehandedly supporting her education and I would be a great guy for buying them. The two boys further along the promenade were seriously miffed that we had already bought postcards, and when we told them we had paid 3x the going rate they exclaimed "it's those girls!"
Capitalism fighting through...
Well, we're now off to find a little boat to take us out to the floating village for dinner at one of the restaurants in the bay. Food at the hotel is very average and we've heard the floating restaurants are very good.
More blogging tomorrow evening no doubt when we get back to Hanoi (catching up with Lan Anh and husband for dinner).
See you all soon.

Liam.

(ps. no Delhi belly yet!!)