Ha long bay, Cat Ba

Spent 2 nights in Hanoi seeing the sights and went out both nights as well which was good fun. A crazy city but i'm enjoying it so far. However i just got back from a 3 day 2 night tour of Ha long bay which was awesome. So on the 4th i got a bus down to Ha long Bay and then boarded my junk. It had 3 levels, the lower one was the rooms, the middle was the dining room and the upper was the sun deck. So we set off and a nice lunch with lot's of seafood and went straight to a cave. I was dissapointed with this bit as it had been very built up for tourists, there were loud speakers telling you to be careful, through your rubbish in the bin etc., the paths were all concrete, there were tourists stalls and women trying to sell you water. The cave was pretty big but was filled with blue, yellow and green lighting, those penguin bins you used to see in leisure centers and they's even added a few artificial fountains..... no idea why. Also the traffic was just as bad as in hanoi with loads of junks trying to get a space in the pier. It was uphill from then on though. We left the masses and slowly cruised through the bay which for those who don't know consists of thousands of huge limestone 'islands' that tower out of the water like submerged mountains and cover nearly 1,500 square km. The weather was stunning so we could just lie on the loungers on the top of the junk and just admire them as we slowly cruised along. It was pretty sweet. We then went to a floating village and got some kayaks and paddled around. Myself and 3 others paddled to a huge cave and went deep inside climbed to a high rock and just watched the sun light far away. We then went back to the boat left the harbour and spent 3o mins jumping of it into the water and having a little swim. Fortunately, there was a really cool group of people on the boat so we spent the evening drinking, doinG a bit of amateur kareoke, looking at the stars, the other boats and the silohuettes of the cliffs.

The next day we went to Cat Ba island, the only inhabited island in the whole bay, and climbed a large hill in the national park though the jungle to the top. At the top was a 20 meter high tower (very rusted) that we could climb which offered spectacular views of the island. we spent the afternoon on a very nice beach, swam out to another island, and otherwise just chilled out. We went out againg in the evening and ended up going back to the beach for a swim at about 1.30 in the morning.

Today was spent getting back to Hanoi. Overall the trip was another highlight of my travels beautiful sights, cool people, well priced, great weather and i didn't have to look at my lonely planet guide once which was a welcome change of pace.