Sunrise in Ha Long Bay and back to Hanoi

We woke up early to see the sun briefly, and some clearer air in Ha Long Bay. Very beautiful and peaceful in the early morning. After breakfast the boat headed back to the harbour, and we rejoined all the traffic heading in and out of Hanoi. It was raining lightly and we saw 2 crashes on the road, both motorbikes colliding with trucks. We stopped at a place that specialised in ceramics and pottery and had very clean toilets. The run into Hanoi was reasonable, and we got to the hotel about 1.30pm as promised. The hotel made 3 rooms available to our group to store our gear, recharge our batteries and freshen up. We had lunch at Little Hanoi, really nice once again. Sampled another variety of local beer. We went our spend the afternoon in Hanoi. Mike and I bought another major brand backpack for about $15, then headed into the chaos by the lake. We found some more things to buy, Mike bought a hat in the theory that they would stop hassling him if he already had a hat. Wrong. We had a really nice coffee overlooking the Hanoi equivalent of a roundabout and were totally entertained by all the craziness. It is Xmas eve so lots of people dressed up in Santa suits and heading into town for parties. We inched our way through the streets, it is like being caught in a buffalo stampede of motorbikes with the odd car and bicycle thrown in to really slow things down. At time we could not move, or had to climb over parked motor bikes to go any further.
Now we are waiting to get the train to Hue at 11pm.