Today was a little bit underwhelming after the excitement of previous 24 hours. We sailed back to Halong City on the Dragon’s Pearl after an early and tedious cave tour (the cave was beautiful, but completely ruined by coloured lights and fake water effects - sort of like a nightclub without the music and expensive drinks). The weather had returned to Vietnam’s trademark overcast-teetering-on-downpour again, and somehow the journey back to port seemed an awful lot more mundane than the journey out.

We made it back to Hanoi after a three and a half hour bus ride (stopping along the way to make ourselves “happy”), and after an hour or so “speed-shopping” in town and a quick sandwich at Le Pub we checked back into the DeSoylia to chill out for a bit.

After a shower and a rest, we thought we would try the famed and much mentioned Bobby Chin Restaurant, a high-class eatery facing Hanoi’s Hoam Kiem lake. No exaggeration - this place has absolutely the best food of our entire trip in an atmosphere that would suit any socialite, wannabe actor or rock-star; even the toilets had glowing, backlit sinks and smoking pipes that would impress the Turkish. The man himself made an appearance, shmoozing with the patrons and generally involving himself in a way that both impressed and condescended, asking people what the food was like knowing full well what the answer would be.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped off for some ice-cream at the rather unfortunately named Fanny’s ice-cream palour (the most popular brand in Vietnam).