The shuttle bus picked us up at around 8:30am in the end, and we commenced the four hour drive to Halong Bay, having a rest stop halfway. There was about 17 of us on the tour in total plus our awesome tour guide Luan. It was a very friendly group from all different areas of the world, and the only other Brits were a lovely couple called Chelsea and Reece, who were from.... WALES! North Wales actually, very near where Lowri will soon me moving back to! We arrived at the harbour and quickly checked into our Seasun Cruise Ship cabin (much fancier than the Hanoi accommodation... but then again that wouldn't be hard!!) then headed to the dining area for a delicious lunch. The 3 of us and 3 others have been designated a 'non-seafood eating table' so the cooks know not to bring us anything fishy (we didn't know how exotic things might get so thought it best to play it safe so we know we get fed!)

We had an hour on the deck taking in the scenery as the boat cruised around the many islands and then it headed to 'Surprising Cave' where we got off the boat to explore the caves. It appears the 'surprising' part was that our rep couldn't explain why the cave had this name. Instead offering his own theories. But we can't hold that against Luan as he was very enthusiastic and informative about everything else, and super friendly. He even kept giving us pop quizzes, asking questions such as 'how many islands are there in Halong Bay?' To which I confidently replied with '1969' and he had the whole group give me a round of applause, obviously forgetting that he had shared this fact earlier on in the day.

After leaving the caves we had a chance to kayak around the bay for an hour. Lowri and Louisa kayaked together and I went with Svetlana, a nice German girl. It's surprising how warm the water was in contrast to the coldness we felt while on the boat... we may even take a swim tomorrow!! We returned back to the boat as it got dark, had a welcome glass of wine on the deck and then a nice dinner at our fussy eaters table, which once again was very tasty. We mingled and had a few drinks and a baileys coffee to warm us up before bed, and that's been our super-duper-well-worth-coming-up-north first day in Halong Bay. It's been spectacular!