Ha Long Bay

Vietnam

October 2006
3 days

Ha Long Bay is a collection of some 2000 tiny islands in the south china sea, we booked our tour for $55 US, a bargain as you will find out...

We arrived at the port and were transftered over to our Junk boat, it was huge with 3 floors (the roof was for sun bathing and jumping off). There were only 10 of us on the tour and we each got a room with an ensuite on this boat - ours was cool and we got a brilliant view to wake up to.

The first we all did was have a nice sea food lunch, unfortunaly for lorraine our hotel forgot to inform the tour operators of lorraines non seafood tastes, so she didnt eat very well. Me i loved it and could eat lorraines portion!

The scenery in Ha Long Bay is beautiful, possibly the most beautiful place i have ever been. We spent a lot of time on the top deck sun bathing on proper loungers with mattresses and everything.

We went to a couple of caves, one was called the amazing cave and it was pretty special, massive with some interesting rocks - one called the 'amazing thing' which as i correctly guessed looked like a penis.

After the caves we went swimming, the water was lovely and warm and jumping off the top of the boat was good fun, lorraine even managed a not too graceful slip/fall/plumet.

The evening we had more food and some wine and beers (which were overpriced) in fact we probably had a few too many, but we stayed on the top deck and chilled. We listened to the tour guide sing some traditional and pop vietnamese songs and some canadians and dutch sing some raunchy songs. It was a full moon and very beautiful (especially when the singing ended).

The next morning we awoke to incredible views of the bay and after brekkie went kayaking where lorraine and i found out we really suck at kayaking - it was hard work getting nowhere fast!

After kayaking we went to a bay area where there were some beautiful natural beaches, we swam around and from one beach to another - i showed lorraine how to skim stones, she got a 4er!

The boat crew set up lunch on the beach and it was so amazing. They got proper table and chairs with linens and napkins and stuff and set it all up on a deserted beach in the shade of a cliff, we had an amzing view of the bay - the best setting for any meal i have every had. Lunch was mostly sea food so lorraine suffered again, i got her portion. It was great.

Then we went to the largest island in Ha Long Bay, Cat Ba Island and went for a trek through the jungle for a couple of hours. It was intense heat, no proper trail with lots of mozzies and climbing and we were all glad when it was over.

We spent our second night in a hotel on Cat Ba Island and in the evening we went into town to check out the nightlife, have some food at a sea food restaurant (poor lorraine), before having some beers.

Then the next day we cruised around checking out the views and stuff again and then it was the long journey back to hanoi.

We arrived in Hanoi at 5pm and quickly showered and got some dinner and then we got a bus at 7pm to Ninh Binh which is a few hours south, i am writing this update on the bus at the moment. And thats us up to date, we're both really glad we decided to come to vietnam as it is already such a beautiful country and Ha Long Bay was one of the highlights of the whole trip over the last 2 years - all for 55 US dollars (each, all food but no booze) bargain!

Ok, so thats not entirely up to date, before i managed to send the above stuff, we travelled to a few more places.

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