Today was another early starts to head out to Halong Bay. We were promised by our travel lady Yen (aka Ian) that it would be a nice boat with people our age for a one night stop-over in the bay. This started with a 4hr bus ride from Hanoi to Halong City, which was painfully uncomfortable, though bloody Julia slept all the way as usual. There was of course the obligatory stop-off at a tack-market where American and Chinese tourists purchased overpriced junk.

On our bus we met our guide for the next 2 days - named Big. His English was dreadful and he demanded far too much audience participation, making his little standup speeches one long cringe.

When we arrived in Halong, we met up with some others who'd come to Halong from another angle and were ushered onto our boat by Big. This was a old wooden setup with a huge dragons head at the front, bedrooms along the bottom row, the "restaurant" above and a lounge area on top. It was quite fine and the rooms were nice enough.

We had lunch on the boat as it chugged out of the harbour, the view around us was just beautiful. Rocky islands scattered throughout this misty bay with jungly bits sprouting out of every crack possible. Almost all the islands had lovely big caves inside them, but only a few were open for us to have a visit - which of course meant that these were crammed full of tourists, even now on low season.

After a couple of hours, we visited on of these caves, which had a marble-paved path running through it and even a little office with computers and grumpy looking Vietnamese men on the inside. Here, Big would point out different crops of rock and inform us that they were dragons or tigers or a couple in love. In the centre of the cave we were told that the reason all the animals were shaped in the rocks was because that cave was where the dragon prince and princess got married and all the animals came for a party. On the way out, Big pointed out a huge boob and a huge penis. I couldn't help but feel like the whole experience was totally fabricated to try to impress gullable tourists. It was still a very beautiful cave and a fun hour or so all the same.

We then walked across the island past another cave and back round to the boat where we all set up camp on top and basked in the sun as the boat drifted deeper into the bay. It really was very beautiful there, another one of those times when I took tonnes of photos that all probably look the same, but every time you look around you just want to be able to capture it.

It seemed to be set up quite well as our route through the bay seemed to avoid the hoards of other tourist boats that we saw leaving the harbour at the same time as us.

After a few hours, we came to a little bay in one of the rock-islands where a small community of floating houses were setup. They were normal little wooden houses with small verandas floating on polystyrene blocks and big plastic tubs. They were a fishing community and had nets and nets full of HUGE prawns, eels, cuttle fish, dog fish, all kinds. They also made a mint hiring out kayaks to tourists. So this we did.

It was low tide and there was a tiny tunnel exposed through one of the rock islands, and we thought it'd be hilarious to take our two 2-person kayaks through this. It was a reeeally tight squeeze and we came aground on the corals just below the surface on the other side, but it was such a laugh working our way through it. Afterwards we kayaked around the bay a bit longer, and noted how filthy the water was around these floating houses. Rubbish and oily stuff and paper all over the place, it was quite gross.

When we gave the canoes back, there was a HUGE jelly fish by the jetty thing, which we were told was poisonous. It must have been 50cms across at the head and a couple of metres long, and a creamy yellow colour. Bizarre thing to watch swim around. As we got back onto our boat and went round to the bay where we were going to spend the night, we saw loads of the things, some of which were being followed by hoards of mini jelly fishlets. So when we dropped anchor and Big asked if we wanted to swim, I politely declined the offer - though some happily jumped in, even with these things in sight. Maybe I'm a p**** but I didn't want to risk it.

As soon as the boat had stopped, out of nowhere came these woman in row-boats laden with booze and snacks trying to sell them to us over the side. The problem was that if we bought booze, the boat would charge a corking fee, and if we bought snacks, Big informed us that it would make us sick. Lies, but still. Everytime Big said anything, and indeed at the beginning of every sentense, he would say "excuse me" and sound like he was saying "kiss me" - which aaaalways made me laugh and I couldn't keep a straight face talking to him.

As the sun set and I took loads more photos, the 16 occupants of the boatel went down to their rooms and showered and drerssed for dinner. This was again whipped out of a tiny kitchen and they somehow prepared a feast for us. We purchased a couple of bottles of Vang Dalat on the boat and took them upstairs with all the others on the boat for the evening - we sat round in a big circle and chatted away until they all filtered off to bed leaving the 4 of us last. The rest were group of gap year boys, a grumpy german girl and coincidentally the 3 girls we'd seen on the previous 2 night busses. It was a nice evening.

The "buy something" ladies were still circling us like sharks, though their prices considerably lower by now.

Whilst we chatted and drank, Big and his crew were trying to persuade us to join them in "Karaoke and Disco" downstairs - we polite declined, 26 times.

When we went down to bed, screams erupted from Abi and Julia's room as they battled with two 3 inch long flying cockroaches. This was hilarious. The boat staff throught something awful was happening and rushed over to be totally useless. They eventually disappeared and we settled for the night.

The beds were like rock, but I slept through like a baby.