A bus, a second bus, a ferry, a third bus and a motorcycle took us to our final destination; a small fishing village-cum-budding Mediterranean resort town, where Erik, Hien our guide, "The Skipper and Gilligan" (Sachs and Trung) and I boarded our boat.
One of the unique aspects of our particular tour is that we were visiting an area that remains largely untouched by tourism aboard a traditional harbor junk, complete with sailing rig.
We so clearly appeared "non touristy" that many of the locals seemed to do a double take when spotting Erik and me on board.
On the day of our arrival, we started off with a vigorous one hour kayak, against the wind, to "Monkey Island."
Once there, we enjoyed an hour of swimming, snorkeling and frolicking with the (not all too friendly!) monkeys before making the long journey home as darkness fell.
The second day on the boat was spent swimming and kayaking to caves that were part of recently-designated Kat Ba National Park.
On the third day, we bicycled in the morning and then Erik and Hien completed a vigorous hike up a local mountain and capture awesome photos of the archipelago we were sailing within.
During our tour, we also enjoyed simply lying back and enjoying our tour of the harbor, which is resplendent with karst formations; the picturesque and famous limestone peaks arising out of the water in this area of Vietnam.
The effect of storms, sea and tides on these soft limestone conical structures present an endless kid's paradise of caves and pirate's coves to explore. So we did!
Daily food for our luxurious lunches featured whole fish tuna and grouper, as well as stir fried chicken.
Fresh produce was provided by the friendly Market Lady, who simply pulled her rowboat alongside our vessel to make her daily trades.
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