The Vietnamese have pumped billions of dong into developing Halong Bay city as a tourist resort. Building is going on everywhere and the beach front is starting to resemble the Spanish Costas. You would not come to Halong Bay for a beach holiday though – there are far better beach resorts in Central Vietnam. The real draw are the 1996 limestone peaks that reach out of the waters of the Bay like ‘dragons teeth’.

Every day at around noon at least two dozen, three masted junks leave the dock side for the most gentle of two day, one night cruises through what is quite simply stunning scenery. It is no wonder the area was awarded World Heritage Site status in 1994.

The junks are now all painted white after the authorities stepped in to smarten up the industry and vary in size from only half a dozen beds – they really are like floating hotels, to those like ours which hold thirty people in quite considerable comfort.

To say the pace is leisurely would be an understatement. The boat never travelled much faster than walking pace and the scenery simply glided by. Sunset and sunrise were both stunning and while I could take or leave the ‘how to turn apples into swans and carrots into flowers’ culinary demonstration I was much more taken with the early morning Tai Chi session on the top deck.

Almost on cue the flotilla of boats moved as one back to base. The companies run an efficient and certainly profitable service – on any one night there can be anything up to 700 people in the bay on 25 or so boats. Yet at no time did we feel a sense of overcrowding. I wonder how that will change as the Vietnamese tourist agency continues to exploit possibly it’s best asset.

Back to Hanoi and another three hours of playing chicken on the insanely busy one lane road that currently joins it to Halong Bay. Of course there were the inevitable stops – first at a cultured pearl showroom and then at a workshop selling marble sculptures, embroidery and lacquer work. I resisted the temptation to buy a two metre tall stone Buddha.