Nursing hangovers from celebrating Tet a little too hard the night before, we joined up with a group and headed to Halong Bay. I had heard from a number of people that Halong was the highlight of their trip, but sadly the weather did not cooperate for us. Arriving in Halong, where we were to meet our boat, it was about 15-20 degrees Celsius, cloudy and misting. Not exactly the ideal sunbathing weather we had anticipated (I for one, had not even packed a pair of pants!)

After making the smart decision to invest in a couple of cheap Vietnamese jackets, we boarded our junk.

Halong Bay is in North Vietnam, and is comprised of thousands of tiny islands set in a gorgeous bay. It was entirely shrouded in mist while we were there, which actually lent a rather beautiful atmosphere. Our weekend was spent kayaking, hiking, swimming (we're crazy) and generally hanging out with our fellow ship-mates who ended up being a fairly fun bunch of backpackers.