Alarm went off at 6.20 this morning! Had to make sure we were packed and got some breakfast, then be ready to leave at 7.45am. Today's tour is the one we've been looking forward to most for Vietnam!

Took a very short mini bus ride to the dock and jumped aboard our junk boat (no idea why they are called junk boats, it's just a wooden boat...). The sun was trying to get out so it was lovely sat out on the top deck and catching a few rays - we're still as pasty white as we were 5 weeks ago! We slowly made our way to towards the limestone islands - they look like peaks coming out of the sea (think the proper name is a limestone karst). Our first stop was a huge one with the biggest limestone cave of all of them. It was very nice inside but way too touristy. We had a tour guide in there with us and he was telling us all these different tales about how lots of the different shapes that had formed were dragons, or tigers etc - it was pretty stupid, a bit like staring at a cloudy sky and saying I see a rabbit. Would have been better to just walk through. And we had a load of Chinese tourists taking pictures of us - apparently they believe that the whiter you are, the richer you are...

We left the cave and set sail a bit deeper into the bay - the views were like something out of a post card, so nice! Then we pulled up at a little floating water-sports dock. Well, you could hire a kayak or a rowing boat. Me and Therese hired a kayak for $10. Before we came away, Therese said that there was no way she would get in a kayak at sea...that's the second thing she's done that she said she wouldn't, she doing well! So glad we did that. We got to float around and take some pictures and then through these little tunnels into secluded little areas - the scenery is fantastic.

We did that for about 40 minutes and then we were off again. We sailed for another 30 minutes and saw loads and loads of the limestone islands in the distance - really was like a postcard.
It was a bit early, but seafood lunch started just after 11am - prawns, squid, some fish and other bits. We sat downstairs in the mini dining area and had our lunch looking out at all the islands, whilst slowly making our way back to land, to finish at 12pm.

It was a fantastic morning but just not long enough. We'd love to have done at least a night on a boat. That's what most people do when coming here and you can stay from 1 to 3 nights on the boats.

We then spent a couple of hours down at the beach, it wasn't sunny, but we just made the most of it. Us lads played the shuttle c*** game - it's quality and I need to import it to the UK!

Next...4 hour mini-bus back to Hanoi. It's not that bad having to travel most of the time because it's quite good relaxing time to just sit back and listen to music or read. But today and yesterday we've had a lot of travelling.

We arrived in Hanoi at 7pm and got straight back out again at 7.30pm to get some food. The streets are really small and narrow here and, as usual, there are scooters flying around everywhere! We went over to the Old Quarter and ate in a nice little restaurant called Little Hanoi. Some pretty good food there. Tried another local beer called Halida but it was probably the worst we've had so far, so went back onto the Larue Beer.
After that we went for a few in Le Pub, and then onto a little club called Funky Buddah - was like a mini Federation in there. The Vietnamese DJ was blasting out the house music. We went back onto the Halida Beers because they were half the price of everything else!

Had a good laugh in there and got back to the hotel at about 2am. Woke the receptionists up as well - they were asleep on the floor! One of the girls picked up her room key, but there was no key, only the plastic number letting thing. The receptionist guy was trying to say she had lost it, so we were trying to explain and arguing a bit until eventually he found the key. He was getting a bit funny with us so we all took pictures of him - didn't help, but was funny!