Waking up on Paradise Island at 7 to leave the island by 8. Everyone was feeling a little worse for wear after a big night. We left the island around 8 to reach our main big boat and head back to the mainland. While on our big boat we had a cooking course in how to roll spring rolls. We had a really good last lunch on the ship before reaching the mainland and taking the bus back to Hanoi. We arrived back around 4, having slept a little on the bus. I talked to som...

We woke up for breakfast at 7:30, feeling a little worse for wear after only 3 hours sleep and a lot of beer. We smashed breakfast and got ready for the journey to Paradise island, where we would spend another night. On Cat Ba Island we disembarked and took a short bus ride across to the other side where we jumped onto another boat that took us towards our little tropical get-away. En route we stopped off for some rock climbing and cliff jumping. The out crop was...

We were up and about early to jump on the bus to Halong Bay. This is when we first met our guide, Snake. He was a pretty funny bloke and gave a few reasons why he was called snake. He was born in the year of the snake and apparently he is also quite sneaky. He kept us entertained during the hour trip to the bay with various facts and figures about the history and Vietnam as a whole. We got to the bay and boarded a smaller boat to take us out onto our main ship. I...