Day 5
26th July 2012

Had a restless night as the air conditioning turned our cabin into a freezer. Woke up part way through the night and turned it off, then of coarse I was to hot. Awoke around 6:00 and went up on deck for my morning cigarette and found there is coffee available as well, now this is living. There is a cool breeze blowing across the deck and the sky has dark storm clouds looming over us but the view is still breath taking. Another coffee and then we a called to breakfast, simple but good, fried egg, streaky bacon, toast, jam, bananas and of coarse COFFEE. After breakfast we are told we leave on the outboard for one of the small islands where we have a choice to sit on the beach and relax or climb the few hundred steps to the summit of the mountain for a panoramic view of Halong bay. Everyone including me decides to head to the peak even though I swore I would not be doing steps this year after my previous 2 trips. It's a steep and steady climb and I'm not the only one in the party puffing and panting and most are younger and non smokers. We reach the top and to be honest I didn't think Halong bay had any more surprises for me but I was wrong. The view is spectacular a vast collection of little sandstone islands stretching in all directions as far as the eye can see. In total there are over 1000 islands in the bay and all I can say is if you ever travel to this part of the world make sure you don't miss this. In all my travels this has to be in the top ten places. We wander back down the steps and arrive back on the beach, some of the group go for a quick swim before we head back to the Junk. We all shower as we have been told that we have to be out of our rooms by 9:30!... 10:30 we are served lunch or is it brunch? Again the food is amazing and even though I'm not hungry I tuck in and pig out. After that we head back to the mainland to pick up our bus and a 4 hour drive to Hanoi.
We arrive in Hanoi and have two and a half hours to kill before we leave for the overnight train to Hue. We pop out and get some snack and then just hang around the hotel chatting. We get to the station and board the train, the cabins are clean and comfortable sleeping 4 to a cabin. We have western style toilets so all is good. We set off into the night. It's very hard to sleep on the train due to all the bumping around but manage to get a few hours in before arriving in Hue at 8:30.