After an early start to the morning, we hopped onto the bus at 8:30am sharp. We drove through the beautiful scenery of Hanoi and learnt some of the history and culture provided by our tour guide Chi. We had a quick pit stop at a handicraft workshop which consisted of marble sculptures and hand sewn wall hangings, as well as lollies, chocolate and Pringles.
During our journey Chi gave us a traditional Vietnamese mung bean cake and a peanut bar. Later we arrived at the Ha Long Bay dock to board our 15 person tender out to our Golden Cruisers Junk. Whilst cruising out to the bay on our junk, we checked out our rooms and were impressed by the breathtaking views from the windows.
Lunch was served consisting of seafood, that some people loved and others only tasted. Our next destination was to Surprising Cave, which was named by the French. Once we were docked at the entrance, we tackled many steep stairs, to finally reach the start of the cave. The first glimpse of the cave astounded us all as we have never seen a cave that large before. The patterns naturally created by the ocean waves were etched into the ceiling.
Even on open water, we cannot escape the market people as they were on canoes selling western goods and souvenirs. As we were getting organised to head off the boat for another activity, we realised that the boys had already locked their keycard in their room three times in the space of three hours.
Later we went swimming at Ti Top island. The beach was busy and filled with tourists. The water was a turquoise green colour and freezing, although according to Mr Blackmore it was "refreshingly bracing". Whilst this group was swimming, a few of us scaled the Ti Top mountain of 426 steps. Despite the difficulty, the view from the top was worth the climb.
Before dinner, we had some down time on the roof of the junk and took in the stunning sunset. Tonight's dinner was to celebrate Wayne's birthday where we indulged in a marine themed vanilla cake. He received his presents that we bought yesterday, such as two 2-in-1 fan hats, beer themed shot glasses and shirt, a hammock and some souvenirs.
And then the party started with a night of karaoke. Miss Thomson, Paige, Chloe and Rebecca started the night off with a rendition of Ke$ha's 'Tik Tok'. The boys took the mic to sing 'Down Under', Bobbie Jo and Olivia sung an alto version of Taylor Swift's 'You Belong With Me', Mrs Griffiths and Rhonda presented us with an enthusiastic interpretation of 'Bohemian Rhapsody', Taylor shocked us all with her hidden rapping ability to Eminem's 'Rap God'; Ashliegh, Tierni, Tilara and Olivia belted out Adele's 'Hello' and the second last performance of the night was Mr Croft singing Queen's 'Bicycle Race' with Kev as a back up dancer. Mr Blackmore and Rhonda finished the night with ABBA's 'Fernando', which virtually none of the students had heard of, although, the adults sang along loudly.
All in all it was a great end to the day as we drifted away to sleep in our bay of paradise.
Hayley & Lauren
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