I took the bus in the afternoon to Cat Ba Island, the largest of 2000 limestone islands situated in The Gulf of Tonkin. These beautifully shaped islands rise up from the blue green ocean and form the famous Halong Bay. Halong Bay is located on the northeast side of Vietnam, a three and a half hour drive outside of Hanoi. I checked into my hostel and booked onto a tour to leave the next morning with Asia Outdoors; a full day of kayaking and rock climbing.

The boat left the harbor early in the morning, and slowly make its way out to Lan Ha Bay, a more quiet and less touristy area of Halong Bay. We had kayaks on the boat that we used to paddle into caves and onto beautiful small beaches. On the boat we had a wonderful lunch with authentic, Vietnamese dishes and relaxed enjoying the view before taking a smaller boat out deep water soloing for the afternoon. Deep Water Soloing basically means climbing up from the boat onto the rock, without a rope, as far up as you are able to and then jumping off the cliff into the ocean. This was absolutely terrifying but exhilarating experience. It was hard enough climbing up and then when you finally managed to get to a ledge to jump off, it was up to a 12m jump into the water below. Madness! I could hardly move my arms and legs by the time the boat arrived back at the harbour. I joined a group from the boat for dinner that night & had a delicious well earned meal at Vietnam's Soul Food.

The next morning I rented a motorbike with a guy from my hostel and we went exploring the national park and island. Cat Ba's beautiful national park is home to 32 types of mammals, including most of the world's 65 remaining golden-heaed langur, the world's most endangered primate. We didn't see anything wild, they all probably heard us coming long before, struggling to hike under the midday sun. However the small hike was worth the couple of liters of sweat pouring out through me as it brought us to a beautiful viewpoint of the dense jungle around. We also stopped at a cave on our way around the national park; Trung Trang Cave with some impressive stalictites and stalicmites. We spent the rest of the afternoon biking around the island and swimming in the golden beaches.

The next morning I just relaxed on the beach swimming in the sea before I got a 14 hour bus to my next stop; Ha Giang.