Chào!

After a full night sleep we had a tasty breakfast which consisted of fried egg, bacon (we hope), toast and fruit. Soon after breakfast we changed ships and joint a new set of people and our second day of excursions in Ha Long Bay.

After about an hour of steaming along through the limestone islands we reached a dock, we jumped off the boat and grabbed our pre-hired bike and set off around the island. The ride was 4km on a road that cut through a rainforest, another couple who we were with decided to hire a motorbike but we decided not because the gears looked complicated, this turned out to be the right desicion as the bikes were more enjoyable. We then stopped and trekked for about 30mins into the jungle. The tour guide took us to a cave which was used in the war as a hospital and to keep away from emeny bombs. This had an eary feeling as we were the only tourists on the island. This island was the most beautiful place we've been so far and honestly didn't want to leave as it was such a relaxed environment.

After getting back to the boat we again feasted for lunch while travelling for about an hour to Cat Ba Island. Arriving on Cat Ba we didnt know what sort of accomodation to expect so we were plesantly suprised when we pulled up to a snazzy hotel.

Once we dropped our bags off in our room we headed out by foot into Cat Ba town, we found countless bars and jewellery shops followed by an amazing market where you could buy all sorts of weird and wonderful things. Ross was tempted with some fake clothes but all were too small due the average size of people being a lot smaller over here. Ross really wanted that fake Kappa jacket!

In the evening we had another feast for dinner with a couple from the Lake District who we had spent the day with. After dinner we headed out in search for a pub and came across a New Zealand style bar. It was amazing, playing chilled out Jack Johnson and Reggea tunes. It was made better that a pint of Tiger beer was only 80p. We ended getting pretty drunk due the couple we were with recntly retiring and kept feeding us drinks as a celebration. We couldn't really understand the couple by the end of the night due extreme slurring. They couldn't handle our drinking pace lol :) We got back to room and fell asleep straight away and didn't wake til morning.

P.S Mum you'll be proud of us as we finally started doing our own washing (old style in the sink)

Much love

x