18th April 2010 We awoke this morning to find the karsts of Ha long Bay shrouded in fog, giving it a mysterious, other-worldy air. We had been hoping to witness it in sunshine, but failing this, to see the ghost like forms rising from the sea was the next best thing. We transferred to Cat Ba Island. This was used as an army base during the war and the Vietnamese army actually made one of the island’s caves into a 16 bed hospital, protecting it from American bombs. ...
19th April 2010 Typically, today was the first day of sunshine on our Halong Bay trip. We awoke on our island paradise and don’t get me wrong, it was a paradise setting, even if we were woken up at 6.45am with the builders starting work for the day. We weren’t even allowed a peaceful breakfast, with drills and saw benches going. The boat to transfer us back to Cat Ba island arrived around 9am, so we all loaded our kit back onto the boat and made the short crossing back to Cat Ba Island. We were met by the minibus which took us back across the island to where we boarded a bigger junk which would take us back to Ha Long City. ...