Normal 0 We were up at 7am to check my rucksack in the bag storage and have breakfast before leaving at 8am for Ha Long Bay. There were 16 of us, 5 women, 11 men. A variety of dutch, english, canadian and so on. We drove for a couple of hours and i slept 90% of it!We had a toilet break at a ceramics center at which point i found out tony left my camera charger at the hostel and i'd nearly ran out of battery, not good! before carrying on for another hour and a bit. We arrived at the port and it suddenly dawned on me what i was doing!! I dont like boats, or the sea yet im doing this for 3 days!!! The boat was huge and in fact you couldn't really feel it moving so i was ok, and we didnt go right out to sea so it was all good! A few minutes into it an english guy called dan tripped over his flip flop and his shorts and his wallet fell overboard into the sea! We thought he was joking at first but then Olivia got the boat men to turn around, we spotted it but the boat missed it so turned again as we got alongside we realised it wasnt his wallet just a wallet sized piece of wood! Olivia was really nice though as she offered to lend him money and settle his tab and he could pay her back when he got some money in hanoi. We sat on the top deck drinking beer and chatting, but i sat at the front just admiring theview, it was so beautiful i cant even describe it, i've never seen anything like it. It was clear blue sky, hot, sunny and clear water, amazing. Some of the rocks are just so big, some covered in bushes and greenery and there were even birds of prey flying overhead and swooping to catch fish.

Normal 0 The boat is huge, theres a lower deck with accommodation, toilet and kitchen, a middle deck with accommodation, a bar and 6 tables each seating 6 and the top deck full of chairs and sun loungers. It's amazing and it really is so smooth you can't feel anything! Who knew that after an hour i would absolutely love it! The highlight of my trip so far! we had a really nice lunch! me, james, jerry and a canadian girl were put on a separate table as we don't eat seafood!After a while the boat stopped and we were all going to go kayaking, but first everyone jumped in off of the top deck, even me!! It was so high but me and tone just leapt forward and did it, im so glad i did but i never would have said I'd do that! The water was so warm and ive never swam anywhere so beautiful before. We climbed back on the boat but all the boys (except tone who hurt his arm on his jump) jumped in a few more times. We then climbed in to our kayaks 2 by 2! Me and tony went in together but we probably shouldn't have as we were really bad!! we were the 2nd slowest people, soon to be the last and olivia and james had to wait for us and rescue us a couple of time when we got stuck and had to puch our oars on the jagged rocks to try and get free! after we left this evil cove we decided to kayak by ourselves and let the others go off, and we were actually better just the 2 of us! When everyone else came back we got back on the boat and had a nice cold beer and chatted and sailed along. We had a good dinner and then kept drinking, listening to music and playing drinking games such as shoulders, best game ever!!! When all inside we had a sing along to Oasis, it was really cool! It rained so we went back inside for a bit and we decided to jump into the sea again! The sign said 'Swimming is prohibted after 22.00pm. After this time we are not responsible for your safety' but it had to be done. Even I did it once! The sea was so warm and it was really fun actually! It was a really good day and night, I had a fantastic time, I've really surprised myself, go me!!