Cruising the bay

Leaving behind frantic Hanoi, we took a bus to Ha Long in order to embark on a three day cruise through the spectacular landscape of thousands of limestone mini islands topped by luxurious rain forest.
Despite the multitude of other boats around, the clumsy, but efficient, tour organisation and the rather quiet bunch of people that happened to be our fellow boat passengers (aside from Tamara and Ramon, a couple from Galicia that Flora loved), the first day was still remarkable as the views from the boat's roof top were incredibly beautiful and the food and accommodation on the boat were excellent. We also visited a cave and stopped in a beach, both underwhelming and way too busy with other tourists.
The second day started really well with an

interesting visit to a pearl farm and kayaking in amazing scenery. Flora was having so much fun diving off the kayak into the beautiful warm water, till... she puked her breakfast in the sea... This was the beginning of what was coming. Flora fell ill with a stomach bug that made her vomit everything she ate and gave her a fever. This lasted for approximately 30 hours... the rest of our boat trip, really.
Despite Flora's fragility, the cruise trip improved

massively on the second day. As we headed further south towards Cat Ong island, where we would spend the second night, the number of boats around decreased substantially as most people only do one night cruises. On top of the pearls and kayaking mentioned before, we visited an amazing fishing village, where more than one thousand people live literally on the sea, we jumped from the boat to into the water, we stopped on a beautiful beach (which we couldn't enjoy as Flora was really struggling) and finally arrived at the very cute, tiny and lonely resort of Cat Ong island, on Cat Ba national park.
On the island there were only 7 people staying. Us, a lively Australian couple (him 22, her 19) and a pair of Spanish siblings. Taking advantage of the permanent "happy hour" and the delicious margaritas, we got quite carried away while Flora was asleep... ill...
On the last day, we made our way back to Ha Long port, while Flora recovered as she slept in the captain's cabin as he commandeered the boat.