Sat 4/8
Started our Halong Bay trip today, got picked up from our hostel in the morning and drove up to Halong city to catch our boat. It was very nice, much nicer than we were expecting. There was a nice mix of people, a french couple, german couple, australian couple, italian couple and two south african girls. After an amazing seafood lunch we had a bit of time to relax in the sun on top of the boat. The views around Halong Bay were amazing. First on our itinerary was a kayak trip to a beach for some swimming. Unfortunately just as we were about to set off the wind got up and it started to rain so we had to wait about 20 mins for it to pass. Me and Cam got a s*** kayak which kept wanting to go the one direction but we got there in the end. First we did the small walk up to the view point before going for a swim. We were a bit reluctant to begin with coz Cam thought he saw a floater in the sea but I think it was just a bit of drift wood. It was nice but very busy when we were there. Had fun watching the beach volleyball and football. Headed back to the boat for a shower and freshen up before dinner. Had a quick lesson into making vietnamese spring rolls which was interesting. They always make it look so easy, just a shame they didn't give us recipes as will never mind how to do it! Got another amazing dinner with lots of different vietnamese food. They put a huge effort into the presentation of the food here! Had a few beers after dinner and then an early night.

Sun 5/8
After breakfast we went to visit Danh Sach cave before changing to a different boat with the South African lasses as the rest of the group were heading back. First we stopped at Cat Ba island and did a 5km cycle through the countryside and rice paddies to a small village. We went back to the boat for lunch and then kayaked again, this time to our own private beach, it was so much nicer than the beach yesterday. Here if you sat still enough the little fish in the water would nibble at you, it was weird! After relaxing for a bit we headed back to the boat which took us into Cat Ba Island where we transferred to the hotel we were staying in for the night. The hotel was so lovely, when we arrived we couldn't believe it was our hotel. We had a few hours free before dinner so we rented motorbikes for a bit. Cat and Ali were lucky coz they got the automatic one where as I was stuck on the back of a semi-automatic with Cam in control not really knowing what he was doing!lol. (Haha Cam says he knew damn fine how to ride the bike!) Saying that he got to grips wae it really quickly and it was actually lots of fun exploring the town. After dinner we headed out for a few drinks, couldn't find the Andy Murray game on the tv so were watching the score on the iPhone instead, still really exciting but not the same as watching the actual game! We sat in the pub too long and ended up having to run home in a thunderstorm which wasn't much as much fun. I decided to take a short cut over a bridge but ended up on me bum coz it was so slippy, it was actually funny but then Cam went over the bridge a while after me and did the same thing but he gave us such a fright because he didn't get up for what seemed like ages! Thankfully he was ok, just two scraped knees and a sore wrist, flip-flops aint really designed for heavy rain!lol.