Halong Bay is world famous, and the most famous place in Vietnam.  It's beautiful and awe inspiring, on boat trips out there you can enjoy the scenery, explore caves, kayak in blue waters. So what did I do? I ate my lunch and then fell asleep on the boat.



Ok so I did appreciate some of the beauty of Halong bay, it was serene out there, with the impressive limestone islands, covered in trees, jutting out of sparkling waters. As we were being driven around them I did sit on the top deck and stare out in my almost deliriously tired state and appreciate the beauty.

But as everyone else went off to explore the caves and kayak, i found a nice spot on the boat and drifted off to sleep. I have no regrets. After almost two months of pretty non stop travel, getting up at 4am for large parts of the trip and spending the rest of it travelling or doing physical labour I was, i can safely say, very burnt out.
I never really understood burn out I thought it was due to stress, but I wasn't stressed, I was happy and very much loving everything I was doing, but I was drained, exhausted and just wanted to sleep. I was slightly delirious and so glad that I had a tour guide to tell me where to go and when, very glad to have safe private busses where I could pass out, and also a private boat on halong bay to sleep on too.

I didn't quite sleep 24/7, but it was close for a few days. I was awake long enough to look out on Halong bay and appreciate it, long enough to see the construction sites on the small town going in to making Chinese owned theme parks (which I think is gross and ruins the natural beauty of the place). And I don't really regret it, even when you're travelling the world and in beautiful places that you may never see again, or at least not in the same way, sometimes your body and mind are going to take over and be like "no this is too much let me rest". That's what happened and it's ok.
One place I do think I need to go back to is Hanoi city though, that's not getting it's own post and it's also got barely any footage from because I ate, took a bath, and slept for the three days that I was there. I didn't get to see the sites or go to museums. I saw the view from my room, and the view from restaurants we went to and that was about it. But again, my body said no more and I listened, it's ok to sleep for a few days when you need to. Travel is hard when you're seeing new sites every day and having so many experiences and routine changes, sometimes you need to sleep on the boat boat that's going through an incredibly beautiful part of the world.