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Wednesday 2nd November
We were collected by bus from our hotel and had a 4 hour journey from Hanoi to Halong bay. En route we saw the best thing we've seen so far on the back of a motorbike.. a cow!! Sadly we didn't get a photo L After a stop half way at an overpriced tourist trap we arrived in Halong bay around 12.30.
Ha Long Bay means "descending dragon bay";it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes.Ha Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 km2, including 1,960-2,000 islets, most of which are limestone. The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. The evolution of the karst in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate. Halong Bay has just been named one of the news 7 natural wonders of the world!
We jumped straight on a little boat which took us a cross to our big boat. A cold flannel and welcome drink was waiting for us while we had our briefing. We were then shown to our cabins - it was small but lovely! Then went back up to have lunch while we sailed. We sat with 2 English girls (sisters) called Cat and Sarah. Lunch was amazing - fresh seafood, meat, rice and salad, there was so much food!
We stopped and our first visit was to Sung Sot Cave - (Cave of Surprises) is the largest cave in Halong Bay. Located at the Bo Hon Island, the cave got its name (grotte des surprises) from a French admiral who was surprised at the size of the cave when he discovered it. It was an amazing site! We then went back to the boat for a while before doing some kayaking! It was fun we had a 2 person kayak and we paddled around dodging all the boats! Back on board we showered and got ready for dinner. We were anchored over night so no chance for Joe to get sea sick! Happy hour was on so we had a few Rocket Fuels (vodka, Bacardi, run and tequila cocktails!) We sat with Cat and Sarah for dinner again and it was delicious! We sat up chatting for a while before heading to bed.
Thursday 3rd November
There was an option of doing Thai Chi at 6am but we skipped it as the beds were so comfortable we struggled to get out of them! We had breakfast at 7.30. Most of the people on the boat were only doing 1 night, as we were doing 2 nights we were transferred onto a day boat so our main boat could take the other passengers back to shore! The day boat wasn't nearly as nice as the main boat. Luckily me and Joe managed to bag a sunbed for the day! We sailed for about 2 hours before getting into our kayaks, We visited a floating village where we saw a little primary school - there was only about 4 children but it was lovely to see. We kayaked for about 2 hours through some caves and saw some monkeys. We really enjoyed it; well I did as Joe did most of the paddling!!
Back on board we sailed to a quiet area where we had lunch -which was good but not as good as we'd had! Then we had some time to swim or kayak again - we chose to kayak! Sailing back to the main boat we stopped at a pearl farm which spoiled the day a little as it was such a tourist trap!
Finally we got back to our main boat around 4pm where we sat on the top deck chatting to Cat and Sarah and watching the sunset! Happy hour again so a few more rocket fuels, another delicious dinner and bed quite early (to make the most of the comfy bed!)
Friday 4th November
Breakfast was at 7.30 and we had some time to chill out on the top deck as we sailed back towards the main shore. We stopped at another fishing village but it wasn't nearly as nice as the one we'd visited the day before. There were literally 100's of boats and it ruined it a bit! Back on board we had lunch before being taken back to the main shore for our journey back to Hanoi! We were so glad we'd payed the extra to do the 2 nights as if we'd of done 1 night we would of felt like we hadn't seen much and what we would've seen was so packed with other tourists!
We arrived back in Hanoi around 3.30pm and had a lovely welcome back at our hotel, they had even upgraded us to the VIP suite for the same price as the standard! We chilled out for a while before meeting up with Cat and Sarah and heading to beer corner for some 13 pence beer!
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