Took a short trip from Hanoi to Halong Bay. It's a world heritage site but I found it a little disappointing, possibly something to do with the fact that it was freezing cold! When you board your boat at Halong Bay you realise how popular this place is as over 400 boats are all jostling for position in a very small harbour. To board your boat you have to climb through about 3 otehrs to reach it, yet it's always the one at the back that wants to leave first!

Anyway the main attraction here is the scenery in the bay - beautiful limestone karsts (rocks) rising from the water. On a better day it would have been more spectacular as the water would normally be crystal clear, but it was a bit murky and misty. The fleece even got another outing...

But after lunch on board our boat we stopped to explore 'Amazing cave' and it did live up to it's name. Stunning limestone formations, full of stallagtities and stallagmites and fantastic colours. Then a few of us braved it in the water for a swim - you really can't go all the way to Halong Bay and not get in the water. Surprisingly the water was pretty warm and I think we were possibly warmer than those who stayed on the boat to watch us!

Overnight we stayed on Cat Ba Island, one of the few islands which has opened up to tourism. Normally you can visit the national park or go sea kayaking but again the weather prevented us from doing this, so there was plenty of time for rest and relaxation (and a long hot shower to warm up!). Walking around the coast is a nice way to pass a few hours. You can even climb (or in our case slip, slide and clamber) up to a lookout point and get a great view over the bay.

But overall I'd say if you want better weather and fairly similar scenery then southern Thailand does it just as well...