We woke up naturally at the early time of 6:30am to the sound of beeping horns and music being played through loudspeakers just outside of our bedroom window. We got showered and ready before packing our final few things ready to be picked up at 8am for our Halong Bay trip. We went to check-out and ordered breakfast, which consisted of a huge baguette with jam and butter. However, just as I was finishing eating I started to feel sick. It came over me all of a sudden but really intensely so Andrew retrieved our room key so that I could go to the bathroom. I also felt quite dizzy and started to sweat as I had my head over the toilet bowl. I lay on the bed feeling annoyed that I was ill on the day that we were going on a trip. I returned to tell Andrew that I didn't feel well and we thought it may have been the malaria tablet that I had taken just before I ate breakfast. Anyway, it wasn't long before I was back in the bathroom and my stomach was in knots, so I didn't want to risk a four hour bus journey without a toilet. Andrew went to tell the staff member that we would be unable to go on the trip and to ask if we could rearrange it but he was told that we would have to pay the full price again as we had cancelled it so late. I was really annoyed as we had spent quite a bit of money on the trip but there was nothing that could be done so we just tried to forget about the lost money. We lay in bed and watched a film and once my stomach cramps had subsided I began to feel a bit better. This was even more irritating as I felt that I would have been fine to go on the trip as it was only a short lasting thing. 

We walked through the Old Quarter to a place called Le Pub. We had a really tasty gourmet burger and we were given a free ice-cream for our purchase. We then sat and had a beer whilst watching the chaos out on the street. We returned to our hotel room and chilled out for a while before booking an overnight train ticket to Sapa for the following day. We then walked to the Travel Agent to rearrange our Halong Bay trip. They told us we could have 40% off but that was off the original price of $99. This wasn't really a good deal as we had initially paid $70 each for the trip anyway and so the so-called 40% off meant we had to pay another $59 each. The staff were really apologetic and explained that it was the terms and conditions of the boat operator which was understandable but we were still a bit annoyed so we decided to have a think before we booked the trip once again. We went to a Vietnamese restaurant in the Old Quarter called Yin & Yang where the food was simply delicious. We also had a couple of beers before walking back to our hotel.