Today it felt like we were on a proper holiday. We got on our private bus which took us to Halong Bay, where we boarded our private junk boat and headed out to sea, amongst the amazing limestone islands. After being on board a short while, we were served a delicious seafood lunch and sampled some local wine, not as good as a Sauvignon Blanc, but I will have to manage. We then headed for some caves and spent half an hour wandering round, seeing all the interesting natural rock formations, including a turtle, big Buddha and penis. The boat then took us to a spot for swimming. Pete was brave and joined some of the others by diving in, but it was slightly too cold for my liking.

We arrived on Cat Ba Island and transferred to the hotel, our room even had a balcony, which was rather posh, after our last hotel room had no windows at all. Dinner was at a local restaurant with the group, unfortunately I think they had only had one chef, as the food took ages to arrive and only came out in dribs and drabs. The local bar was offering a shot of free rice wine on arrival and buy two get one free on beers, so it was an obvious choice where we headed after dinner.

7th April

Up early today for a quick breakfast and then heading off for some Kayaking. This time it was two people per boat, so I teamed up with the Kayaking expert Pete. We went into a lagoon and then stopped on Monkey Island to feed the monkey's, they come very close and will take the food from your hand. Pete was again feeling brave and ventured into the cold sea with some of the other guys and then started a stone skimming competition, which of course he won. It was definitely harder Kayaking at sea than on the Li River, but it was great floating around the islands.

We said goodbye to Cat Ba Island and headed back to the mainland and Hanoi. We are staying in the same hotel as before, but fortunately we have been given a different room and this time we do have windows. We went back to our favourite restaurant and both had something different and it was still amazing food. It was a lovely warm night so we walked to Hoan Kiem Lake and walked around, many couples here and most of the benches were filled up with them, then there was a group ladies doing exercises and lots of people power walking around the lake. We spotted some break-dancers, kids learning to roller-blade and people generally enjoying themselves.

Since being in Hanoi I have tried coffee and liked it, the coffee here is lovely and they serve it with condensed milk. The other major breakthrough is that I tried Avocado and guess what, I liked it. So I am getting more out if this trip than just lots of photos, clothes and things, making my bag even heavier and poorly tummies.