We’ve just spent the night aboard the Dragon’s Pearl junk, on our second day of cruising around Halong Bay. We where woken at 6:30am to the sounds of rowdy backpackers and cheesy dinner music filtering through from the restaurant upstairs… which must mean that it’s time for breakfast.

We arrived in Halong City at about midday yesterday, after a three hour bus trip east from Hanoi. Along the way, you could see workers clearing land and building roads to enable access and amenities for tourists, for which the city and boat trips are a major draw. It was here we where transferred to our junk; the Dragon’s Pearl.

Very impressive from a distance, it is actually modern, floating hotel and restaurant with just about every amenity you could possibly want. As a junk, it isn’t terribly authentic (it does have a sail, but only raised to give tourists a photo-op), but the cabins are very comfortable and the restaurant serves mountains of excellent food.

We were blessed by the first good weather we’ve had since coming to Vietnam, and It wasn’t very long into our journey before I started to realise why this place was such a draw for people - the views on the water are absolutely stunning. The water is just so deathly calm, and you can see magnificent limestone rock formations like silhouettes for miles.

After a couple of hours on the water, we landed at Titop beach. It was here that the sea calm and tranquility ended, and the tourist extravaganza began. Fake beaches, banana boats and little old ladies selling B&H, Coca Cola and 35mm film out of rickety old boats abound. Taiwanese tourists where out in force, destroying whatever peace and quiet might have been and leaving mountains of trash lying about the place. Thankfully we weren’t here very long…

We boarded the boat again and after watching the sunset, and had dinner with a Dutch couple we met earlier this afternoon, talking for a long time about travel, photography and computers. They are both professional photographers, touring Asia by bicycle collecting images for a UNICEF book. They’ve been in this part of the world for about four months now, and had a few interesting tales to tell of their journeys - all in all a thoroughly enjoyable evening.