On our last morning in Hanoi we enjoyed a nice breakfast in our hotel before nipping outside to catch the bus which would take us to Halong Bay. We were soon picked up and on our way in a large minibus. After stopping to pick up some other people, including a group of the most annoying English idiots I have ever encountered, we set off from Hanoi.

Once on the motorway the guide accompanying us gave us a bit of commentary, getting off to a mediocre start by telling us the incredibly high numbers of people killed every year on Vietnamese roads because they drive like mentalists, and that the road we were taking to Halong was nicknamed 'Death Highway'.

With this reassuring information we settled down for the 4 hour journey, during which I had to listen to my ipod at full volume to drown out the peurile drivel being shouted at a phenomenal volume by two of the English idiots sitting right behind us (And right beside each other, which made me wonder why they had to shout quite so loud).

We were very grateful when we finally pulled in to the bus station near Halong City, where we got our first view out to the myriad limestone islands dotting the bay. Because we had only signed up for a one way trip on one of the tour boats on the bay, out to Cat Ba island, rather than the normal 3 day 2 night tours most people were on, we were abandoned by the guide from our bus and told someone would be along to get us in a while.

Not very reassured, but at the same time glad we wouldn't be on the boat with the cretins from our bus, we hung around the bus station until someone did come along and took us and some others who were hanging around out to one of the numerous wooden junks moored near the bus stop.

Once on the boat, which had a large dining room/bar area we got chatting to the other people on the boat, finding most of them pretty nice. We were soon underway, sailing into the bay away from the rather grimy coast near Halong City, out towards the magnificent Halong Bay.

Soon we were sat at the big dining table where we were served a tasty but not very filling lunch comprising of a mixture of seafood and general asian dishes along with some chips. After eating we went out on deck to watch our approach to the towering limestone islands, which looked amazing under a perfect sunny blue sky.

Soon we were approaching one of the islands, and we sailed into a bay completely packed with other junks before mooring at a dock. From there we got off the boat and, following the guide from our boat, attached ourselves to the tail end of a neverending snake of people making its way up some stairs and into a hole in a cliffside. When we finally reached the hole we found the entrance to a rather impressive cave, which we spent the next half hour wandering through, along with about 12 million other people from all the other boats.

Despite the crowds the cave was quite nice, with some impressive formations and a ceiling which looked exactly like waves at sea. Another highlight was an area where a rockfall had happened recently, resulting in golden shafts of sunlight slanting down through the ceiling high above.

After passing through the cave in our big tourist conga line, we made our way down some steep stairs and to another dock where we got back on our boat.

After leaving the circus cave island, our boat made a course into the heart of Halong Bay, sailing between innumerable sheer cliffs of limestone rocketing straight from the surface of the sea, topped with trees. Everywhere we looked we had incredible views of the countless islands all around us, and the weather couldn't have been better.

At one point the boat stopped at one of the many floating fishing villages dotted about the bay, comprising little huts on floating bamboo platforms. Here we were told we would be visiting a cave which featured in a James Bond film along with some other caves and finally a place near the fishing village's school where we could go swimming. Then we got our first taste of the way the Vietnamese tourist industry works as we were told for the pleasure of seeing Halong Bay on our tour of Halong Bay we would need to pay another $3.50. This brought surprise from most of our fellow passengers and we staged somewhat of a mutiny, refusing to give in to them charging us extra to see what we had really already paid to see. In the end, however, a few of the passengers buckled and parted with their money, while we and a number of others remained on the boat. When they returned later they reported that the cave was nothing special and the water at the swimming spot was filthy and filled with rubbish, so we felt quite glad at having saved a few dollars.

From the floating ripoff village we continued through the bay in the fantastic sunshine of the late afternoon, sitting up on the top deck of the boat and drinking in the view of the incredible bay all around us. Towards evening, we approached the point where we would leave the boat, Cat Ba island. We moored up at a pier which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, and got off the boat before walking to the end of the pier and a waiting minibus.

Here we were told we would have to wait 'a few minutes' for some more people to turn up before the bus would take us to Cat Ba town, about an hour's drive away across the island. We killed some time with a honeymooning Spanish couple, sitting on a railing drinking cheap beers bought from a very persistent local saleswoman.

Eventually a group of other people turned up from another junk and we just managed to make it known we were waiting for the minibus as well, and had been for longer than them, before we were all piled

into the minibus, crushed into the seats with our bags squashed down on our laps. Once the bus was full they managed to get about 5 more people in, then set off with the side door open and people hanging off the side, assuring us that it was only for a short distance.

We soon realised why we would only be on the minibus for a short time, as we rounded a corner on the road through the Jurassic Park-like scenery to see the road end ahead of us in what looked like a lake, but turned out to be a flood, with a group of local women waiting at the water's edge with little basic rowing boats.

We then proceeded to unload ourselves and our bags from the minibus before piling both into the rowing boats. In the last light of dusk, we were then paddled across the massive expanse of flood between towering hillsides of jungle by the local women, finally being dropped off where the road emerged from the water some few hundred metres further on.

One the far side of the flood, we all loaded into a bigger bus which then drove us in the dark along an incredibly twisty road through the jungle until we arrived in Cat Ba town, where we were dropped at the main street, running along the waterfront.

We found ourselves in a very beach-resorty looking town with the entire seafront lined by tall hotels and guesthouses with restaurants on the ground floors. Out in the bay, we could see floating seafood restaurants lit up for the evening.

We then set off on a mission to find a cheap but decent place to stay, wandering up and down the seafront street and up and down so many flights of stairs carrying our big bags that it doesn't bear thinking about, until we eventually settled for a big room with a sea view, two massive beds, cable TV and free wifi. It seemed perfect, until we drumped our bags on the ground and sat down on the beds, finding to our horror that the mattresses seemed to be made out of concrete. This taught us one other thing we needed to check when looking at rooms in the future.

Since we were completely dripping in sweat after our hotel search, we had a shower then made our way out to find something for dinner. We chose a restaurant near the hotel which had a cheap and extensive menu and enjoyed a plate of fried rice in my case and in Lucy's, one of her favourite meals of the trip which was a plate of chips topped with chicken breast and garlicky tomato sauce like that you would normally have with pasta.

While we were sitting eating, we watched amused as people at the next restaurant received neck and shoulder massages involving lots of slapping and clapping noises from some men whilst sitting at their tables. Once the masseurs had finished with them, they came by our restaurant and asked if we'd like a massage. I replied that indeed I would, and was soon sitting with my chair turned around backwards, enjoying an incredibly relaxing and invigorating massage, at least up until the point the guy wrapped an arm around my neck like a ninja and said 'relax'. When someone has their arm wrapped around your neck and you can tell they're about to whip your head to the side to crack your neck, the hardest thing to do is relax, but somehow I must have managed to relax enough as the guy cracked my neck not once but twice.

After the massage and our food we wandered back to our hotel and spent the rest of the night on our concrete mattress watching movies, including the astoundingly creepy but good 'Orphan' before dropping off to sleep.

In the morning we woke up with our bodies fully aware they had spent a night on the World's Hardest Mattress, so we decided to pack up our stuff and find another hotel. This time we left our bags behind as we grabbed some breakfast at the same place we had eaten dinner the night before, then wandered along the seafront street, this time in the hot bright morning sunshine, until we eventually decided to go for a room in the first hotel we had checked out the night before.

We walked back to pick up our bags and on the way enquired about our options with regard to buses and trains down the coast once we got back to the mainland. Realising that catching a train along the route we wanted would be a nightmare, we realised we would probably have to catch a bus. We booked a bus/boat/bus combo which would take us onwards to Hue in a couple of days, then returned to check out of our hotel and transport our bags to our new place.

After dropping off our bags in our soft-bedded new room, we decided since the traffic was much quieter on the island than the utter chaos of Hanoi, that we should maybe hire a scooter to check out some of the surrounding area. Enquiring downstairs in the hotel, we found they had an automatic bike for rent for only a few dollars a day, so we said we'd take it.

Since I hadn't driven a motorised two wheeled vehicle other than one disastrous attempt in my youth involving crashing into a tree, I opted to give the scooter a test ride up the street first. With this completed smoothly, and my driving skills meeting Lucy's approval, we set off to explore Cat Ba.

We first drove around the town until we found a petrol station across a bridge down by the harbour. After filling the tank half full, we set off for Cat Ba National Park, in what we hoped was the right direction. As soon as we left town we were struck by the great scenery of the island, with big jungly hills all around and the sea never far away.

Once we had gone a little way out of town, we followed a sign indicating the route to the National Park, which soon took us onto a dirt road. Meeting a scooter coming the other way, we asked the western passenger whether this was the right way to the park. She said it was but to watch out because 'they explode'. This comment made us a bit worried, and thinking she meant our bike might explode we asked her to elaborate. She explained that further up the road construction works were ongoing, and there was rock blasting in progress.

Realising that the day's riding might turn out be a good test of my skills, we set off up the road, climbing into the hills. We soon realised that the whole road we were on was under construction. We were driving along compacted rock which had obviously been blasted recently from the cliffsides running alongside the road.

As we continued along the bumpy, unfinished surface, we passed through a narrow canyon with big chunks of rock lying in the roadway, recently blasted or fallen from the cliffs on either side. Skillfully navigating between the boulders, we carried on and thankfully soon found ourselves back on a metalled road.

We followed the road out of the hills into wide valleys with small villages along the sides of the road. The road ran in long straights along these valleys, eventually leading us past a cliff face housing a hospital cave, which we decided to return to later, then along a final stretch until we reached the entrance to the national park.

We parked the bike beside a building at the entrance to the park, then bought some entrance tickets from a lady in a booth. We also asked her about the walking paths in the park, ascertaining that there was a small hill nearby which we could climb up and back down in 3 hours.

We left the booth and walked down a long straight path leading to densely jungled hills rising straight up in front of us. At the top of one hill we could see some sort of lookout tower, which looked interesting.

We soon reached the foot of the hills, and began our climb, first up a long and very steep staircase of roughly carved stones heading straight up the hillside. Sweating and puffing, we made it to the top of the staircase, then set off through the jungle on a narrow, rough path which led us steadily higher.

Eventually we came across a sign which indicated the summit of the hill was less than a kilometre further on, and could be accessed by either a normal or 'adventurous' track. We opted for the normal track, which in hindsight makes me wonder just what was involved in the adventurous one.

The track, although only 800km long, continued steeply up the hillside through the dense jungle, more often than not over rocky outcrops which in places could be ascended via rusty old ladders.

We carried on through this amazing environment until we reached a final steep, rocky section which we knew must take us to the top of the hill. Carrying on up more ladders and a steep path, we emerged from the foliage to find ourselves at the base of the tower we had seen from the entrance, with the most stunning view of the island all around us.

In every direction were sharply undulating peaks interspersed with valleys and all a lush green. It really felt like we were in Jurassic Park or some other exotic location, which I suppose we actually were.

Once we were able to tear our eyes away from the view, our attention turned to the tower. It was tall, basic and very rusty, probably having been built during the American War. Despite its unsafe appearance, I couldn't resist the temptation to climb to the top to check out the view. Clutching the camera, I set off slowly up the widely spaced, see-through stairs and gingerly made my way higher and higher up the rickety structure until I found myself at the top, where a very basic roof covered an even more basic wooden plank floor.

I spent some time taking pictures and gathering my courage for the descent, before picking my way down the steps, unable to resist looking down between my feet to the ground a fair distance below. Eventually I managed to make it to the bottom to a relieved Lucy, and we sat for a while with a drink of water before beginning our descent.

We took the same path down, through the jungle and down all the ladders before tackling the monster staircase. At the bottom of this we stopped at a little cafe type shack for a Cornetto and some more water before wandering back along to pick up the bike.

Leaving the park, we took the road back towards Cat Ba until we arrived at the hospital cave we had seen earlier. We left the bike at a little cafe across the road from it and accompanied the caretaker across the road and up some steep stairs to an opening in the cliff face a distance above us.

Inside this opening was a section of concrete wall with a sturdy-looking metal door set into it. The caretaker opened the door then flicked some switches, illuminating concrete corridors stretching far back into the cliffside. We stepped over the threshold and, accompanied by the caretaker, proceeded to explore this incredible place.

Our guide led us along the stark, damp corridors, pointing through doorways to indicate the former uses of the various blank concrete boxes making up the cave's rooms. We could almost imagine the place packed with injured soldiers and military staff during the American War, sheltering from bombardment and the heat outside.

The place was a warren, with a couple of levels built out of concrete and stairs leading up to the 'roof' of the structure, still inside a large cavern. From there there was another doorway out onto the far side of the cliff face from that we had entered, which provided a great view of the valley towards the national park.

After thoroughly exploring the cave with our guide we were led back out and down to the road, where we hopped on our bike for the journey back to town.

Following the road we had taken on the way out, we were soon back on the 'offroad' section, bumping through holes and dodging boulders until we came to the narrow section where the blasting was taking place. On our way out the workers must have been on their lunch break, but this time they were at work, and we had to honk our horn to make sure they knew we were there before we drove beneath guys hanging from the cliffside planting charges in the rock.

Managing to avoid getting caught in any explosions, we carried on down the rough road until we were on smooth tarmac, then continued back towards Cat Ba. As it was only late afternoon and we'd paid for the bike for the whole day, we decided to explore some more so drove past Cat Ba town to a smaller village around the island from it. We parked up here and enquired at a kayaking place about hiring a kayak the following day. The staff took us out a rickety gangplank to a cluster of floating restaurants where their kayaks were stored, and showed us the type we could rent if we came back the next day.

The scenery around this little village was amazing, with tall cliffs surrounding placid water on all sides, and floating fishing villages covering the surface of the water in every direction.

After checking out the kayaks we drove back to Cat Ba, through the town along the waterfront road and on to check out the beaches at the three nearby coves, Cat Co 1 to 3. The road took us high above these little sandy coves, which we could see were busy with people making the most of the last of the afternoon sun. We stopped at the furthest most beach and wandered down to dip our toes in the sea, finding it incredibly warm. Looking out to the islands all around in the bay, we decided we'd definitely like to give the kayaking a go the next day.

Once we left the beach, since we still had some petrol left we drove up and down the main boulevard in Cat Ba town enjoying the wind in our hair and the view of the bay, before finally heading back to the hotel and dropping the bike off.

Back at the hotel we took a shower and relaxed in our sea view room for a while, before heading out into town to find some seafood, for which Cat Ba is well known. Based on some reviews, we went to a restaurant which turned out to be part of one of the hotels we had looked at the night before. We ordered some crab and a prawn dish and, although it was tasty it was nothing to rave about, and was quite expensive compared to the other food we had been eating.

After dinner we wandered along the main strip then went for a drink in a popular bar, Noble House, before walking back to the hotel. Unable to resist the lure of cable TV, we switched on and watched parts of some movies before eventually getting off to sleep.

The next morning we woke up early, planning to get to the kayaking place so we could have a full day out in the bay. However, outside it was absolutely bucketing down, with some of the most torrential rain we had ever seen. We decided since we were tired we'd go back to bed for a long lie, and didn't get up again til around 10am. When we looked out the window, we were greeted by glorious sunshine and absolutely no sign that there had been a torrential downpour a couple of hours earlier.

We had pretty much written off the idea of kayaking upon seeing the rain, but the change in weather changed our minds so we headed out to grab some breakfast and some takeaway sandwiches to take with us, then got our stuff together and sorted out two motorbike taxis to take us over the hill to the town with the kayaking shop, Hai Beo.

Once there we were soon provided with our paddles, map and dry bag and shown to our kayak out at the floating restaurant. We got it in the water, climbed in and set off to explore the bay.

First we paddled through the mirrorlike channels between the floating villages, with the towering cliffs looming above us. After exploring the area for a while, and successfully managing to avoid the aggressive guard dogs at every floating house, we made for the open sea, but soon realised we didn't know our way.

We tried to ask a woman at one floating house but she was so utterly confused when we showed her the map of her home area that we soon gave up and headed in what we hoped was the right direction.

Luckily it was, and we soon found ourselves paddling between two huge cliff faces out into the open water, with islands in view in all directions. We made for an island almost directly ahead of us, on which we could see a deserted sandy beach. After some time paddling, we reached the beach and pulled the kayak up onto the sand. We had the place completely to ourselves and amused ourselves for a while swimming in the bath-temperature water, snorkelling around and exploring little caves off the beach. We ate our packed lunch and fuelled up on water before shoving the kayak back into the water and heading for another nearby island, which we could see had a building on it that looked very much like a bar.

When we eventually reached the island and dragged the kayak out of the water, we were confronted almost instantly by a security guard asking if we had a ticket to the island. We replied that we didn't and when he demanded money just for being on the island, we turned around, shoved the kayak back in the water and headed on our way.

We hadn't wanted to go too far from the entrance back to the fishing village harbour, but since our plans of lounging on the island with the bar had been shot down, we set a course past one of the larger nearby islands, which we knew would take us into Lan Ha bay, which supposedly had amazing scenery.

Battling against the waves we eventually rounded the island and did get a great view of more limestone islands sprouting out of the sea in all directions. We spied a distant spit of sand strung between two of these towering monoliths, and began paddling for it. This involved crossing an area open to the wider ocean and once we got out into this area, a large swell began to roll in. We suddenly realised how small and frail our kayak was, and not wanting to capsize and risk soaking our camera or get into any trouble, we swiftly changed our course and headed back towards the island we had just passed.

We took a slightly different route around the islands, and along the base of one of the cliffs before turning into the fishing village area. Once through the giant natural harbour wall, we found it much easier going in the still waters around the floating shacks, and enjoyed gliding between the houses as we made our way lazily back to the kayaking shop.

We had originally planned to have the kayak out for 5 or 6 hours but by the time we got back after around 4 hours, we were completely exhausted. The guys at the shop were nice enough to give us a refund for the unused hours, and once we had dropped everything off we caught another motorbike taxi back to Cat Ba town.

In town we bought some beers and plenty of water, then went up to the hotel room for a shower and to relax. We were wiped out after the kayaking so we ended up spending the whole evening in the room watching movies on cable TV. First Mad Max 2, followed by Death Wish 3 and then the uncut version of the Exorcist. Eventually our marathon had to end and we dropped off to sleep.

The next morning I headed out from the hotel to find an ATM, since none had been working in town for the last couple of days. Luckily I found one working so was able to get cash out to pay for our hotel. Once we had settled the bill we wandered back to the same cheap restaurant we had already eaten in about 4 times, got a big breakfast then waited around until we were picked up by the bus that would take us on the first leg of our journey to Hue.

This bus drove us right the way across Cat Ba, on far less scenic roads than we had explored on our little scooter. We eventually got dropped off at a boat dock at a point very close to the mainland. Here, we piled onto a small fast ferry which whisked us back to the mainland and then we got onto one more hot minibus which took us to the nearby city of Haiphong.