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Got up really early for the trip, checked out of the hotel and headed off to the Handspan office. Met Jen there - she was going on one of the other Junks with her friend Kevin.
We got on our bus, luckily we had a really nice group with us. Our guide had his son with him - it was children's day the next day, so he wasn't at school. We nicknamed him 'the boss' as he took over the microphone most of the time and wanted to sing his songs!
Our first stop was a 'Happy Stop' at handicraft and ceramics factory, we all had such a laugh pointing out the most ridiculous pieces that we could find. Left the happy stop after about half an hour, then headed off to Ha Long bay. Got there just past 12, dropped the first group off (Jen, Kevin, Julian, Kate and the Swedish brother and sister). John and Joe were on our boat, which was good. We got to our dock- which was very posh, the general manager - Jeremy introduced himself to us. He seemed very strict - very head master like.
We finally got onto our little boat to take us out to our Junk, the welcome onto the boat was a little cheesy (had a drummer welcoming us along with some of the staff from waving at us). We went on to the boat, had our welcome drinks and check-in. We were then given a briefing by one of the staff of our plans for the day. Jeremy rudely interrupted the poor guy and made him look really bad in front of everyone. After our briefing, we went to our rooms - really beautiful rooms, so nice - this is the kind of boat I can deal with- luxuary! Joe and John were given a double bed originally as they thought that John was a girl! Oops. After freshening up and having a wander around the boat we when for our lunch. We ended up sitting with John and Joe which was nice as it made a bit of a change to chat to other people at dinner. Had a very delicious 7 course meal which we all really liked. Joe is a big of a foodie and was very much enjoying everything that was put in front of him!
After dinner, we headed to one of the islands were we could swim or just hang out. Instead we decided to walk up to the view point - up the 423steps. I nearly died walking up them, so incredibly unfit. The views were brilliant, so it was worth going up all those steps. Spent a little while up there, then headed back down. John and Manisha decided to swim back to the boat, myself and Joe happily volunteered to take their stuff back to the boat. John and Manisha managed to swim back even before we got on our boat back! Joe nearly had a accident with John's camera, he nearly dropped it which would have been very very bad - think John would have killed him after extracting a very large cheque from him!
Got back to the boat, chilled out for a while, then went out to see one of the fishing villages. Was very interesting as even though everyone lives in very basic houses, they all seem to have huge T.V's in the middle of their living rooms. I enjoyed seeing the village and the way that they live. Was surprised at the number of pets that people had, even though they lived on the water.
Got back to the boat, and chilled out on the top deck before dinner. We were all a bit annoyed when we had to move downstairs to have dinner. The music had changed from Jazz Beatles at lunch to things like 'the look of love' and other such romantic songs! It was great fun just watching Joe make puppy dog eyes at John - he certainly kept us entertained over dinner. After dinner was a traditional music show, however, before the show, the guy with the Vietnamese banjo started playing 'happy birthday' - all of us were looking around trying to see whose birthday it was, we soon realised that the cake was heading my way! Had a lovely cake with my name on and everything! Was very sweet, blew my candles out in one go and shared the cake with everyone on board and the staff. Was one of the best cakes I had ever had! For the rest of the day (and the next day) all the staff were constantly saying happy birthday to me!
As we couldn't go on the squid boats, we did some squid fishing off the back of the boat - no one managed to catch anything, they just ended up annoying all the fish, which was quite funny. We then headed off to the top deck for happy hour, just chatted for the rest of the night with John, Joe and Manisha, was great fun.
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