Hạ Long Bay

An early morning bus picked me up and it took about three hours to get to Hạ Long Bay. We were taken to our home for the night, Cristina Cruise! It was spectacular as you can see from the extra photos. I had a private room, massive bed and a private balcony with views of one of the most beautiful bays in the world. It's probably the most luxury I've had in my year away.

We had a buffet lunch and I met some lovely people: Christine & Alfonso from New York, Joela from Germany and her friend Chynkee from Canada. We all got to know each other over lunch and then we were taken to Sung Sot Cave (also known as "Surprising Cave"), a set of three caves discovered in 1904 by a French man but only opened to the public in 1994. It was very beautiful and it's also the viewpoint where I took this photo.

We did some kayaking around the bay and I was paired with a lovely lady from Malaysia. After almost leaving two of the girls behind, we went to an island with a beach and had a quick swim as the sun went down.

Back on the boat we were given a glass of wine before we got ready for dinner and cocktails! Our small group was joined by Ashley from California and Chad from sunny England. We made use of the happy hour, which fuelled our very loud karaoke session. They were all a great group and it made the experience even better.