OK, so today was meant to be the highlight of our holiday: an overnight stay on the luxurious Dragon Pearl junk boat as it took us around Halong Bay. Alas storms in the region meant that no ships were allowed to sail from the bay.

Onwards to plan B. Two hours - but a mere 60km - out of Hanoi is Tam
Coc. Known as 'Halong Bay on land', this is a stunning area of limestone rock formations.

To explore this beautiful place, we took to bikes and pedalled off with the sun baking us as the temperature reached the mid 30s. Madness? Nah, great fun!

In case we'd not done enough exercise, our guide then led us up one of these incredible mountains. At the top of a slightly challenging climb, we entered a cave carved into the mountain to find a Buddhist pagoda! Stunning!

The fun not over, we then took our seats in a small boat being powered by one Vietnamese woman rowing while another helped out by punting us forward. I did offer to help, of course, but they wouldn't hear of it. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The trip along a meandering river was typically defined by amazing scenery as we passed traditional scenes of fisherman going about their daily work while kids played on the river bank.

For the perfect finish, we drifted through a cave, ducking to avoid the stalagmites (stalactites?!).

We're sad our Halong Bay trip was cancelled, but we'll try again next week. In the meantime, we've just had a day to remember!