We got into Hanoi at 4am and had to wait around in the station until a decent time, and we managed to find a tour to Ha Long Bay the same day at 8am. We took a boat with 4 english guys, an Israeli couple and 3 french guys (who had identical brown hair and brown stubble and who shapiro got on well with and also looked similar to so they went around together lots like a band of brothers). In that top gear episode where they ride all the way up Vietnam on motorbikes, their final stop is when they reach Ha Long Bay where there are nearly 2000 massive jutting limestone caves, and they have to turn their bikes into boats to reach the fishing villages and floating cafes and its all scenic and weirdly beautiful - well thats where we ended up after the boat ride. It was incredible. We went inside this humoungous cave with loadsof stalacmites and stalactites, had lunch on the boat and were joined by these 4 girls (from south africa, hawaii, canada and california) who were teaching english in saigon. Then we went kayaking around the caves and through tunnels and coves hidden in the rocks, and that was awesome because I was with the Israeli guy who basically did all the work and let me lean back and enjoy the view!

We got back and had dinner on the boat and then started drinking and playing I Have Never on the top deck for ages. There were just a few of us by the end of the night, all incredibly pissed, sitting on the top deck of our boat in the middle of a bay lit up by the lights of boats and surrounded by hundreds of massive strange jutting rock formations, being soaked to the bone as it was pouring down with monsoon style rain. Was very surreal.

The next day, we were meant to wake up at 5am to go swimming at sunrise, but everyone was too tired and hungover.We were joined by more people (all guys) and arrived at Cat Ba island and drove to the national park to do our trek. I had to do a trek up a limestone cave, the only girl in a group of THIRTEEN guys. Nightmare. I was definitely the least fit, the most sweaty, the most red faced and it didn't help that I have my minor fear of heights.. We had to clamber up sharp jutting rocks (it was basically rock climbing), walk on tricky narrow ledges, and it was scary and dangerous and high (danger factor may be an exaggeration because of my intense wimpishness..) But once I got to the top, I was very glad I did it because of the spectacular views of the mountainous island. Going down was the hardest though and by the end I just wanted to put some makeup on and feel like a girl again.

We drove to our hotel and I decided to explore by myself and find the beach and the boys decided to rent and learn how to ride mopeds around the island. This involved a funny incident which I desperately wish I had been around to witness where Tom gets on the scooter for the first time, opens the throttle too far, zooms off into the middle of the road and then falls off the bike leaving cuts and scratches all over. See, this is not unlike my own first time scooter experience, but at least I didn't fall off, so I felt a slight one up. Aaanyway, we spent the night drinking homebrew Vietnamese beer and getting drunk again (and when I say we, I mean everyone except me because of my no dirty alcohol rule) and wandered to a bar that we persuaded to stay open past closing time just so we could continue drinking.

The next day was spent entirely in travel, in transit from Cat Ba Island to Ha Long City to Hanoi then a 12 hour sleeper bus at night to the old capital city of Hue.