27th 29th July Ha Long Bay One day in Hanoi is to arrange this trip was enough. We are certainly overdone of cities. We have a great party of like minded travellers in a minibus of 12 such luxury after the train from hell.!! As we arrive in Ha Long Bay we are fed and watered very nice and loaded onto our first boat which takes us across to CAT BA ISLAND for our first night stay. We pass by many of the 1700 Island in this area another world heritage site. Many very small un inhabited. the weather is rainy and the cloud is low so hampers our views slightly however with good imagination you can see the beauty of the place. We stop off in one of the bays for a cool off in the beautiful blue seas... AH great to be wet again!! We arrive at Cat Ba where we spent our evening socialising with a few beers.. We are up early the next morning and off for a morning's Kyaking we travel around as many Islands stopping off on remote beaches for some natural bathing (you can choose your own beach) a lovley morning exercise and fun. Mark got chased by a monkey on the beach, He got just a little too close for that perfect photo should have seen him run to the amusement of us all lazing on the beds.. Back To Cat Ba for lunch and then out for some caving and then onto another boat which will cruise the Islands whilst we socialise the evening away and sleep...More swimming we are all enjoying the waters and having fun swimming until dusk we laze around have few beers and few smokes. Great evening!! The morning brings a little break in the weather I first up and dive straight into the seas for some serious swimming I swim off around one of the Islands I was OK but got told off by our guide on my return. Probably not the most sensible thing I have done BUT I DID enjoy it. At one time I had local fisherman stay with me for a while. Well earnt breakfast and we are retruning to Cat Ba for our trip back to the main land beautiful few days with some lovely people...