For the record, I'm not a fan of pig testicle

I know everybody says that Vietnamese food is absolutely amazing and up until last night, I would have been right there driving that bandwagon. That was before I was served an otherwise delicious meal which involved, as is probably quite obvious, a pig's gonad. Yes friends, I looked at the suspicious round thing on my plate and thought 'hmmm, maybe that is a little testicle there on my plate', but I ate it anyway and decided that yes, I was probably right. For the sake of those interested, it tasted like a spongy meat flavoured egg. As delicious as it sounds.
My foray into the world of eating animal goolies came after a bit of an adventure on our way to Ha Long Bay. We got the bus (evidently the wrong bus) ok and four and a half hours after hopping on, we were promptly turfed out onto the side of a dark highway. "Luckily" there were some conveniently placed moped riders waiting on the off chance a bus load of people containing 7 clueless tourists would drive by and bustle the tourists off. THANK HEAVENS FOR THAT, EH? At this point, I think me and the other people from the bus (Czechs-also clueless) were a little bit panicky and worried that we were going to be taken into the night and held at gunpoint and robbed of all our worldly possessions and never see the light of day again. Fin, on the other hand, was cool as a cucumber and hopped on. Turns out they didn't want to kill us, just take us to a hotel. So we didn't get as far as we had planned that night, but on the plus side, I can now say I've survived a near death experience (yes, it was near death, I'm not exaggerating at all), eaten a pig's ball and nearly got chased by a Vietnamese police man for going to a private dance performance (thanks to dear cousin of mine).
Today was much nicer, although an early start meant no breakfast for my rumbling stomach. We haggled for a taxi to the ferry terminal and got on what can only be described as a pile of rust that formerly may have been recognisable as a ferry. Now it is rust, held together by a little bit of non rusty metal. Obviously, I felt safe as houses. Or not. It was a cool trip, though, right through the bay past all these giant imposing cliffs. It was like out of a film. Except I wasn't a secret agent or an elf or something cool like that. Just an English person sitting on a floating pile of rust. When we arrived on the other side, we jumped into a little local bus and went the rocky road to Cat Ba town.
Upon arrival, both blinded by hunger, we went to almost the first place we saw and trusted one of the MILLION Germans that are here that it's a decent hotel. It is. The room has an amazing view and we have a bed each, which is mega luxury. They also rented us a moped, which is terrifying/awesome fun. We zipped around the island a bit, meeting more Germans and hanging out on some beaches, and came back for a well deserved rest. The woman in the hotel told me she saw me driving and I don't drive fast enough: a country where they encourage you to drive faster? I think this is my mum's dream country