This river of the Dragon, one of the seven wonders of the world, was a 3 and half hours bumpy minibus ride from Hanoi and a paradise of sorts.

Megan, Helen and I joined a tour group on the Halong Party boat, which was chosen as it was not as raucous as the castaway tours. We saw the "Surprise cave" (that's the original name of the cave) which was huge and had loads of stalactites and stalagmites with great views too. We went to the local beach to climb umteen amount of steps to be rewarded by a panoramic view of the ocean with these "island like" shapes to be seen for miles. The guys were playing volleybal on the beach and people were strewn everywhere in the sun.

Back on the boat, we had sun downers on deck with a delicious fruit platter. Stayed on board overnight and woke up to spectacular views of the standing mountains. The boat continued on course deeper into the less touristy bits, we stopped off at a secluded spot for swimming and of course jumped off the top deck of the boat (about 3m high).

We finally moored in this cove which exposed this gorgeous private beach paradise with white sand, a beach bar and bungalows. Swam, kayaked, rock climbed (this was my first free climb) and then jumped/fell into the sea (clearly not much health and safety), played pool, table tennis and volleyball.

Saw the most amazing sun sets over the ocean. Had bond fire going on the beach and our guide came up with some really bad drinking games, which I'm sure he never played before.

Of course there was Asian Karaoke (my highlight...love a bit of Karaoke) and ended up singing Vietnamese songs with the owner- he seemed to think it sounded okay:).

Met the best people who seemed to gel so well together, we were referred to as "the family".

Before I knew it 3 days, 2 nights was gone, but forever to be remembered. A couple of boats and a minibus took us back to Hanoi. We stayed one more night but in the other Hanoi Backpacker, where there was a live band. Many of us from the cruise went to a Lonely Planet recommended restaurant which meant it was rather expensive, but divine. We had the cricket delicatessen again. It was an amazing evening. We went to a local bar after in their private room for some drinks, was really cool too.