After much deliberation, we decided that the best way for us to see Halong Bay was to follow the masses and go with an organized tour. Besides, it seemed like a good chance to chat with other travelers and plan our next move.

So after a very bumpy and slightly cramped four hour bus ride, we arrived at Halong Bay City and boarded our boat for the journey. Whilst enjoying a very westerner-adapted Vietnamese lunch on board our junk, we started drifting through some of the 3000 or more islands which now surrounded us. This is surely one of the most amazing places in the world, with tree-covered limestone sculptures of all shapes and sizes jutting out of the emerald green water. Halong Bay is apparently Vietnamese for 'dragon descending into the sea'. They say that a dragon was angered by the Chinese and descended from his mountain. As he entered the sea he cut through the land to create the island speckled bay.

As a break from island watching, we were taken to Sung Sot caves. The caves would have been spectacular if not for the tacky use of fluorescent lights highlighting various animals that different rocks apparently represented. We had a good laugh when our guide pointed out a jellyfish. This would have been interesting if every other stalactite-riddled formation in the entire cave didn't somehow resemble a jellyfish! It was even more hilarious when, after pointing out the shape of a woman washing her hair, he pointed to a nearby rock that apparently resembled her private parts!

Our uncanny magnetism towards French people continued as our boat was full of them. As always there was a slight language barrier, but Jess finally had found us a karaoke team and luckily our boat had the set-up for a good old sing-along! Soon enough our boat became one of many anchored in the bay with cheesy songs and off-tune notes drifting out. Any language barriers were definitely broken. God bless the Beatles!

The next morning we were plonked onto another boat as the rest of our passengers were doing a shorter tour. Changing tour groups was a common occurrence over our three day trip, a little frustrating as it made it hard to get to know anyone past a superficial level.

So, with a new group of keen island-watchers we were taken to Cat Ba Island, the biggest and only really developed island in the area. Our new tour guide, Lucky, led us on a short trek through the national park. At the summit we climbed a rusty old watchtower and were rewarded with views of the entire island.

Later in the afternoon we took another boat to another picturesque lump of limestone called Monkey Island. This island was full of variety. It had surprisingly well-behaved monkeys, a beautiful beach with coral sand, ridged rock formations and a great view of the bay.

Unfortunately one of the more dominant topics of conversation during the trip was relative tour prices, although we seemed to have paid less than most. We realised that we had unknowingly been upgraded to a more expensive tour to fill spaces. This may have had something to do with the fact that, only a few weeks ago, a boat similar to ours had sunk in under 90 seconds in the early morning, tragically killing 14 tourists. Apparently many of the boats were taken out of action for a safety assessment and the fancier boats were operating for both luxury AND budget tours. Hence the upgrade...

On a lighter note we had some great weather on the cruise considering that Halong Bay is notoriously famous for mist and rain.

Feeling all island-ed out, our next destination is Dong Hoi, where we plan to visit one of the largest caves in Vietnam!