After a day in Hanoi where we did very little, we were picked up at 8.15am, drove until 12pm to reach ha long city.
Lots of buildings being constructed and didn't seem like there was a lot there; just a stepping stone. We had a small boat to transfer us to big boat for lunch, which had a good selection but didn't include drinks. In fact, they had a large corkage fee, so we had to hide ours. We met Iris and Eileen, a couple of older ladies from Australia who we got on really well with. It was a grey afternoon, with lots of fog which made for some nice pictures. We saw kissing chicken rock and then went to the 'amazing/surprising' cave which was huge and very impressive. We were pleasantly surprised. The guide told us stories about the caves discovery and how it's used by the people in Ha Long Bay; to keep warm in winter (it's a few degrees warmer) and cool in summer (a few degrees cooler.) Opting out of kayaking as we knew we'd do it the next day, we headed back to the cabin to relax with a little glass of Dalat wine. The bedrooms were really nice as well. Dinner was another huge selection and we certainly finished full up. They hollowed out a pineapple keeping the leaves on and had a candle in the middle, very cute. Afterwards we did a bit of squid fishing, then had early night.

The next day was an early start as they had to take those on the one night tour back to land by lunchtime, so we were shuffled into another boat for a full day kayaking tour. So getting on the boat, we were wondering where everyone else was... Nope just us. So the day consisted of a lot of relaxing. They took us to caves to kayak around. That was pretty nice; we could hear bats up inside one. Then we saw ages monkeys. They offered us to go swimming but we declined as the water was disgusting. At night when all the boats were anchored in the same area, we saw how many of them there were (a total of 500 tourist cruises in high season, thank goodness it was low season) and we saw them all dump into the sea. Combine this with the people who live in boats on ha long bay and you can imagine. Apparently the government gave steeped in at the start of 2015 to start clearing the place, but I'd say it'll be a while yet until we would want to swim in there. They took us to the floating villages and it was amazing to see how people lived on these tiny boats, some making their living by rowing up to tourist boats and trying to sell them sweets, crisps and beer, others surviving mostly on the fish they catch. We even heard them dynamite fishing, Kenny thought this was amazing. We saw a few cool eagles but couldn't for the life of us get a good picture. We relaxed sunbathing then had lunch. At first we just thought it was chips and to be honest, we were both happy about that. Well you should have seen the food they brought out for two people... A fish, squid rings, pork on a stick, rice, salad, spring rolls, the list goes on. We tried our best but couldn't finish it. Afterwards we kayaked to s deserted beach which was covered in some cool shells, purple ones and lots of spiky stones but it was pretty nice to see and soo quite. We took in turns to kayak, 1 to 20, then the next persons go. We have actually gotten so lazy. Another hour of cruising and sunbathing, and we reach the pearl farm. They taught us about the different types of oyster they use, some renewable and some not, and showed us how they 'plant the seed' to grow the pearl. Some cool facts:
70% of the time there is no pearl
20% of the time there is an imperfect pearl (shape or colour no uniform)
10% of the time there is a perfect pearl and these are worth a lot of money.
It helped us to understand the expense aspect as well. After this we sailed back to our boat, got washed for dinner and had a table for ourselves, we felt very special lol Another bottle of wine then another night falling asleep watching the stars our the window.

What a beautiful view of Ha Long bay to wake up to :) it was just a pity there were soo many other boats around. We had an easy sailing back to shore where we had lunch in ha long city then bused it back to Hanoi. This time we stayed in Royal Palace where Katie and James were staying, and the four of us went out to have a lovely Indian, those two trying cheesy naan for the first time. And said our final goodbyes. Loved those two!!