Wow!!!! That's all that needs to be said for this place. It's absolutely beautiful & a definite must for anyone thinking of travelling to the region. After a 4 hour minivan ride we got to Ha Long city & saw our first glimpse of the bay. Best idea is to grab a look at the photos when we finally manage to up load them... We cruised around for about 4 hours, visited some caves, had some lunch - i even ate fish!!! Then we chugged on over towards the town of Cat Ba, strangely enough on Cat Ba Island. As we were only doing the 2 day not 3 day trip & had opted to stay on the boat over night we didn't actually getto see the place but were'nt missing much by the sound of it. at about 4.30 we stopped in a little cove completely sheltered from everything & went for a swim. We spent the best part of 2 hours swimming & kayaking around. The water was, in patches, almost like bath water it was so warm. We then had a quick shower & back on deck for tea, during which another boat run by the same company turned up so me, Em & the a few of the other guys on our boat went for some drinks on theirs & chatted away till about 10.30. The next day started brilliantly at about 6.30. We had breakfast & made the 40 minute trip back to Cat Ba to pick up some more people. We were supposedly going to stop on the way back to Ha Long for some more swimming but a huge storm appeared on the horizon & i think most of the boats made a run for it. Didn't quite make it though & within an hour we were chugging through torrential rain, with the odd flash of lightning & a crack or two of thunder thrown in for good measure! Back in Ha Long by 11am, we had some grub & made the trip back to dreaded Hanoi....