An early start brought with it terrential rain for my 2day boating experience. As we circled the city picking up different people I began to wonder who I would be spending the next two days with aboard a boat with few hiding places. I lovely French couple (reminded me of mum&dad), 4 'clicky' germans, some chinese, some americans, and then there was James, a highly irritating, very 'public schoolboy' who had done and knew everything. For the first hr he slept, but after that all tranquility on the bus was destroyed and his voice was constant in my ear (despite talking to the French couple!)

3hrs later we arrived at the bay ready to set sail on our 'Junkie' (where we also picked up two more german guys). We ate amazing fresh fish lunch amounst hundreds of limestone formations...beautiful! After this we set off across the bay to a huge cave, only discovered 15yrs ago, but the formations were unreal. Back on the boat for some more sailing, through floating villages before stopping off for a swim and kayak around the rocks. I teamed up with my new roommate Kim, who, like me, enjoyed kayaking for a bit before getting bored. This suited us botyh fine, as we could paddle enough and the let the tide do the rest!!! As we got out of the kayak and back on the boat we looked into the water to see jellyfish with meter long tenticles casually swimming past the boat where we had been less than 2mins before! We chugged on through the bay passing more amazing formations and watching the sun go down before sitting for another tradition meal. As the sun went down quickly the beers began to flow. It became apparent who was sociable and who was not, so we started with a very painful game of 'drink-whilst-you-think'. Kim an dI attempted to liven things up with a game of 'I have never', where the language barrier became apparent (or the 4german's intention to be social) so instead we just drank for our own sanity! Possibly the best thing that came out of James mouth was to go for a night swim, so a few of us jumped in, just before our idiot guide came to tell us to get back in the boat...we didn't. By this time people had began jumping off a boat not far away, so we thought it was a better idea to swim to their boat and party with them. A few jumps off their boat later (and a few more beers) we decided it was about time to swim back to our boat. At this point a jellyfish swam past, sadly we had no choice but to swim. In addition to this we could see the people opn our boat pulling the ladder in, which worried me more than the jellyfish! I swam faster than I ever did in any gala, and was relieved (and supprised) when i reached the boat unstung! It was at this point that we learned that 4 of the germans had got stung on their swim back earlier! I got up at 5.30am to watch the sun rise - absolutely peaceful around all the rock formations, although sadly the sun was also behind one of these! The next day was spent enjoying the views, reminising of the night before, laughing at those who had got stung (particularly Chris, who had phoned his mum to see what he should do!!!) A joint decision by a few of us was to get the first train out of Hanoi when we got back, so Thomas and I packed our things and headed straight to the station, anticipating to find Chris and Alex already there, but they weren't. We got our tickets and waited, and waited...when they finally did arrive all of the tickets were sold out, so Thomas and I headed off on a 16hr train ride for Hue, ready to meet the boys if and when they arrived...