Awoke early in the hopes of seeing a sunrise but still dark at 5.30am. About 6.15am started to get light but no sunrise as too much cloud and mist.
Very cold too as quite a strong breeze. Breaky which wasn't overly great. Then Grandy, Poppy and Rob stayed on boat while others went on little boat to an island where they climbed to the top to have a view of Ha Long Bay. Quite hard work to get to top of mountain. When they arrived back we had to vacate cabins at 9.30am! So they had time to clean for next guests. Seemed ridiculous to have to be out that early as have hardly had time to spend relaxing. Then into dining room to be shown how to make pork spring rolls which we then ate to then be served lunch at just after 10.30am!! Then boat docked back at port at 11am and we were told we could stay on boat another hour if we liked!! Why would you when you are stuck in the port!! Such a shame as boat was glorious and so was Ha Long Bay. Just a shame we had a pushy guide who gave you no time to relax and enjoy it!
Really funny when Grandy was almost left behind on boat when we were getting transferred back to land and Poppy almost took the Captain into the water with him when the boat lurched just as he was getting in little boat. ( well funny now as nothing bad happened)!
Drive back to Hanoi was uneventful. Took about 4 hours. Back to Paradise Hanoi Hotel where our large backpacks were stored and then walked to the ??? Market right nearby. This has 3 floors but much of it is for the locals and their clothing etc. Still we managed to find a bit of stuff. Then Wayne found an open mini bus thing to do a quick tour of town. Emphasis on quick, as driver was obviously near knock off time as had almost road rage as he raced around the town. Very funny, still we saw a fair bit of Hanoi and was great to be out in the traffic in an open car! When we got dropped off we walked down to Resturant 69 and had tea. Only average meals, but great ambience.
Back to hotel to collect our daypacks for trip to Sapa. Cuong our guide met us at 8pm. He travels with us to Sapa and shows us around up there. Really nice guy married with a 3 year old. His great love is photography so he was able to give Wayne and Lewis lots of pointers.
Got to train station and walked across tracks to get to our sleeper cabins. In good condition and boys went in 4 berth with Cuong and the rest if us in other 4 berth. Train left at 9.15pm. Took a while to get used to the swaying and the noise but finally all off to sleep.