Halong Bay

Up at 6.30am to get our stuff packed and to catch the bus at 8.00am. No restaurants were open for breakfast apart from all the street food but from experiencing last night we carried on walking until we found one that let us in early!
We left the hostel and took a minivan to Halong Bay. We stopped off at a weird monument place. There were masses and they were imported from all over the world. We arrived in the city 4 hours later. Again we hadn't booked anything unlike everyone else so when we arrived we didn't see many hotels! A man approached us and offered us lots of deals. The boat cruise he showed us looked amazing but we knew it was definitely not going to look like the picture he showed us. We paid for it anyway. When we got on the boat it was nothing like it at all. The food was also completely different but was still good. We went to see a cave on one of the islands. Was so gigantic. The tour guy didn't tell us anything about it but just pointed a red laser onto rocks that looked like it resembled something. After this we got back onto the boat. 2 people started getting annoyed with them people doing the guide as it wasn't what they had paid for. We joined in as they said we couldn't even see our rooms, so we weren't able to change. They also said that we were staying on the island the first night and then the boat. We wanted it the other way round. The boat stopped for kayaking but we had to pay for the paddle so we just sat on the top of the boat. We then stopped off at a small harbour and half of the people got off to stay on the island. The boat stayed in the middle of the sea with the harbour close. It was strange as it felt like a big lake not the sea. We all went swimming and you could jump from the top of the boat. The 3 of us stopped the swimming when we were told by the local man to stay away from the jellyfish!! Supper was amazing. We got shell fish and other vietnamese food. Our rooms turned out to be quite nice in the end but no where as near as nice on the magazine!