Ha Long Bay...the most amazingly beautiful location I've ever seen...but the journey there is not without hardship...well first world hardship anyway.

We left Ha Noi at 7:45am and after bumping along the main road, which seemed was under repair the whole four and a half hours, finally arrived at this modern wonder of the world. Unfortunately we didn't have a guide with us for the journey so it took some time to convince the driver to stop for a toilet break at a local tourist attraction.

An hour of so later another stop was required but this time no fancy tourist toilet for us...was he punishing us for making him stop a second time? The driver pulled into a service station and went to check with the owner whether we could use the toilets. It seems they didn't have public toilets but let us use their private one...which consisted of a wall with a drain outside of the building for the guys and a smelly squat toilet for the girls. We were very grateful though for the owner's kindness and I'd planned to buy a chocolate bar or something as thanks, but they only sold fuel and oil...and I didn't need either of them.

We arrived a Tuan Chau Tourist Wharf and donned bright orange life jackets for our transfer by tender to the Ha Long Emotion Cruise boat. All around there were boats off all different shapes and sizes. Six hundred and fifty boats do nights in the bay while over four hundred do day trips so you can get an idea of how many there were.

Once aboard our boat we received a welcome drink then checked into our cabins. While the boat was a little on the old side, the view through the huge windows in our cabins and the restaurant more than made up for this. Looking at the many other boats, ours seemed amongst the better ones though.

As we slowly motored along our cameras were working overtime, trying to capture the beauty of the 1,969 islands in the bay. I did delete a few photos but won't be offended if you skip through them quickly as there are lots. After a delicioius buffet lunch it was life jacket back on, then onto the tender to visit Surprise Cave.

The islands in Ha Long Bay were all once underwater, as was Surprise Cave. The roof of the cave is interesting as it has large "divots" of varying sizes in it. These divots were caused by the water lapping around in it. As it's no longer covered by water stalactites have formed in other parts of the roof so it's very interesting to look at. The Vietnamese people lived in the cave during the war as it provided a great shelter for them.

Our next stop was a beach for a "refreshing" swim...and boy was it refreshing. It was soo cold and while it took me a while to get wet I did eventually. We'd all agreed it probably wasn't wise to put our heads under though...but more about that in a minute. It was back to the boat, off the tender then on to a speed boat to further explore the canals where the cruise boat couldn't go, although I think there was probably only one place we went that the cruise boat wouldn't have fitted.

It was very distressing to see a huge amount of rubbish floating in the water amongst these majestic islands, and this is why we decided not to get our heads wet. Rubbish boats go around every morning and afternoon scooping up the rubbish and apparently one of these boats had collided with a shrimp boat and sank which was why there was so much rubbish. Such a shame that this natural wonder is spoilt by humans...oh wait, that's what we do best isn't it.

Back on board, a quick shower then time for happy hour on the top deck. I can't think of anything more amazing than cruising amongst these incredible islands, with a cocktail in hand and wonderful new friends to share the experience with.

Dinner was a seafood buffet with the seafood provided by the local fishing villages.