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After our horrible evening in Hanoi we were looking forward to our two day cruise in Halong Bay. Unfortunately we had to go back to the bad hotel for our pick up! But there was something satisfying about waiting outside for our trip and getting onto a minibus with another company.
It took over 3 hours to reach Halong Bay, with a 25 minute stop on the way at a massive souvenir shop of course. A bit irritating! We climbed on board a small tender boat and looked around us at the mass of cruise ships in the harbour and the resort lined shore. One couldn't help wonder what it would have been like 10 years ago. We neared our boat and were a little disappointed to see it wasn't like the pictures on the website, but once on board it did feel rather luxurious and we were very happy with our cabin and ocean view! We had actually been upgraded to a nicer boat (I think this was because not enough people had booked our trip) so we were surrounded by people who had paid £30 each more than us to be there. Obviously Luke liked that best.
We had a sumptuous lunch with a variety of dishes and lots of seafood options, then we set sail and made our way through the large rocks that have made Halong Bay famous. The afternoon consisted of a trip to a floating village, an hour kayaking in a two person kayak in and out of caves and small rocky coves and a trip to a remote island. Here we climbed up steep steps to get a fantastic view of the bay and swam at the small beach. Once back on the boat and showered, we had a glass of wine and a cooking demonstration, where we got to make the fried spring rolls that would be one of our starters that evening. We had a huge 3 course dinner, this time sitting with the other 4 English people on the boat. After a short time in conversation with the two other couples it quickly became apparent that all three of the women were teachers! All away on their summer holidays and not looking forward to the return to school!
After a good night's sleep we headed back out on the small tender to the famous 'Surprising Caves'. At first sceptical, we ended up very impressed with how 'surprising' the caves were. They were much larger than anticipated and had fantastic stalactites and stalagmites inside. Photos just couldn't do these justice.
Then is was back to the 'Opera' Cruise Ship for an early lunch before heading back to port. We thoroughly enjoyed the trip but would have preferred much longer in Halong Bay and felt that the trip was quite regimented in order to fit in so much over the 2 days. We found out why our boat didn't look as we thought. Apparently the Tourism Board decided that all the Halong Bay boats should match so had enforced them all being painted white, rather than the wooden colour we had seen online. It also seems that the sails are rarely put up, just for photographs we were told. So although our boat didn't technically 'set sail', we saw several others looking like the traditional picture postcard junk boat.
We braced ourselves for the long trip back, obviously with another souvenir shop stop off, and hoped our next evening in Hanoi would go much better.
- comments
Pasty Mum I hope so too! By now you'll be enjoying the delights of Thailand I presume, so hope it's going well and that you're a) relaxing, b) not being fleeced, duped or conned and c) more importantly for Luke, not being overcharged! Make the most of this last week!!!xx