Off to Halong Bay from Hanoi (about 4 hour drive) then onto our boat for the rest of the day, tonight and a bit tomorrow morning

Good boat just our group of 10 (Arturo who is a Mexican living in LA has joined from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City) - private sleeping quarters, upper deck outside, food, drink etc and great crew - bit like a houseboat with staff

Halong Bay is just simply amazing and better in real life than some of postcard pics you might have seen. We cruised in amongst the rocks towering out of the water, past floating villages, visited a massive cave in one of the rock islands, swam at a beach, ate excellent food, sang karaoke after dinner, drank too much wine G&T beer and a litre of Hennessy cognac between 5 of us, outstayed the tour leader and crew and set ourselves up for a slow day tomorrow

Virginias birthday so we sang HB about 10 times, the boat crew made a cake and it was. Pretty unique birthday

Where we anchored overnight was in a secluded bay next to some towering rocks which made for a unique overnight