Sunday - Trip Day 2

Awoken at 7am, we all shuffled in for breakfast and had to check out of the boat as tonight we were staying on Freedom Island. Some people had only booked the 2 day trip so at this point left us (including Christof), and we were merged with the sister boat next door so had a new group of people join. Dad also left us at this point, and we had a new tour guide who was only 23 and was a lively character who us girls decided would be referred to as our 'Bro' to replace Dad. We were led to some rocks where we were invited to go and jump off one of the large rocks (I thought looked like pride rock out of the Lion King). However when we went to swim over to it, people were getting cut as there were loads of oyster shells, so the girls (and Marco) stayed away while some of the lads braved it and jumped off the top. We had a swim around and returned to the boat.

We made it to Freedom Island which was totally remote and private to our group, threw our stuff in the room and went to have lunch (with the no seafood group). As others went out on the water and played volleyball, I relaxed and chatted to some of the group and then had some quiet time with Sara soaking up some sun. The sun gradually set and I chatted more to a couple of girls from the Netherlands and then showered and lay looking at the moon in a hammock for a few hours just chilling on my own thinking about family friends and my other half what felt like so much further away when being on such a remote island with no ability to easily contact anyone.

Eventually I dragged myself out of the hammock and decided to join Sara and Lauren downstairs for cocktails and joined in some drinking games, watched others go for a nighttime swim to try and see Plankton which is supposed to glow in the dark in the water which I'd already seen something similar but what seemed to be stronger in Jamaica (I couldn't see it from the shore and didn't want to get in) but the others said they saw some of it. The rest of us left of the beach stared and admired how bright the stars were in the sky, and I felt really happy to have seen three shooting stars which I made silent wishes on. After a dance with the group, I went to bed and although it sounds unappreciative of the beauty of this remote island, I looked forward to being able to hear from those at home tomorrow. Its times like this when despite really appreciating being there and in the moment, I wished my other half was there to see it with me too.

Our usual 7am wake-up call took place, we had breakfast and embarked on a series of boats and coaches to Hanoi. It is worth mentioning how ill poor Joe (aka Tarzan) was on the back of our bus, only 1 minute after we pulled off, Lauren had him sat next to her tucked in the corner of the back seat of the bus, it seems he went to throw up in his hand when Lauren shouting hysterically "He's going to be sick!!!", the whole bus turn around and I shout, "Stop the bus, open the door!" as Tarzan swings down the centre isle, nearly taking out one of the Brazilian guys who had tried to leg it out of the way and ended up getting more in the way, and we all gasped as he projectile vomited just on the side of the road. He was then isolated to the front of the bus as the rest of us weren't taking any chances to be vomited on.

Back in Hanoi, Loz and I check in for another night and then go for dinner with Sara, Jess, Dan and Callum from our boat. It's at this point we feel in full traveler mode as you realize you can always bump into people you've seen/met before and how friends you make turn out the have met people you have. As we were sat for dinner, two guys who had been in our room in Nha Trang walked past and Jess called them over as she had also met them at some point in her trip so they joined us for dinner. Afterwards we sadly said goodbye to Sara, Jess and Marco as they went onto the night bus to Sapa and I managed to get some wifi time to catch up with home and we got an early night.