Bai Tu Long is the less commercial brother of Ha Long Bay, as featured in Top Gear and many films. We arrived on the overnight Fansifan train from Cai Lao at 5.30, getting used to early starts! It was a long drive on potholed roads to Hon Gai harbour where we were ferried out to Red Dragon I, our junk. There were only 9 of us guests and 7 crew so we were well looked after.

There are 1969 islands and islets in the two bays, and many of the larger ones have caves in the limestone in which fishing communities lived until a few years ago when they were rehomed into a floating village so that the bay could gain World Heritage status. We went kayaking around a couple of islands from a small beach.

The food on the boat was freshly caught and cooked with amazing presentation. Unfortunately I must have had the one dodgy bit of seafood and spent the night inspecting the plumbing. Luckily though, one of the other guests was a doctor and he gave me a sachet of something which worked. I was pleased I remembered enough French to talk to his family as his parents-in-law didn't speak English.

On Sunday morning I slept while everyone else visited the floating fishing village in torrential rain. We had a tropical storm in the night and the rain continued until we got back to port at midday for the long drive back to Hanoi.