Day 46 - Halong Bay

We got up early and got ready for our trip. We had a quick wander for some breakfast and found a street vendor selling freshly baked cinnamon buns. We were picked up by a bus which would drive us to halong city to get on our boat. It was a four hour drive to the city. We had a toilet stop on the way where there were some street food stalls. I went to buy some watermelon and I asked for a slice which was about 80p, and she gave me a whole half all cut up into chunks in a bag. When we arrived at the pier it was a bit of chaos, but we finally got on the boat. It was really nice! Very old school, like a pirate ship. It had rooms on the bottom deck, Michael and I had a double room with ensuite and air con and everything! The main deck was like a restaurant/bar, and then the top deck was for sunbathing. While we got our rooms and everything sorted, the crew were busy making our lunch. It was so good, buffet style seafood lunch. No complaining here! We ate lunch while sailing towards halong bay. The scenery was stunning. Beautiful sea with huge limestone cliffs standing out of the water. We sailed towards one of the limstone cliffs which has huge natural caves inside and got off the boat to go explore. The caves were unbelievable, absolutely enormous. It took us around an hour to see it all then we got back on the boat. We sailed over to a floating fishing village, where people have pretty much built a house and tied barrels underneath it to keep it afloat. They anchored the boat and got the kayaks out and set us loose in the sea. We had never kayaked before, but we really enjoyed it. We just paddled around all the cliffs, found some caves and went through them and explored a bit on the sea. By the end we had jelly arms! After kayaking we went for a swim. People were jumping from the top deck of the boat, both of us were too chicken haha. It was really high though! I started freaking myself out about sharks and stuff so got out the water. Then, the next person to climb out was climbing the ladder and all of the wooden steps snapped in half haha. So the people still in the water had a manor struggle getting back on the boat. We had dinner and spent the rest of the night drinking and chatting to the other people on the boat.

Day 47 - Cat Ba Island

The boat took is to cat Ba island, where we left the boat to stay in a hotel on the island. Before getting to the hotel, there was an optional hiking excursion. It had been raining heavy and we both only had flip flops on, so we decided it was probably too slippy and dangerous for us. So we sat in a restaurant near by for the two hours, reading our books and playing with the owners two cute little puppies. When the others came back, we were very glad not to have bothered! They were soaked and covered in mud from falling over on the wet rocks. We were taken to the hotel, which was really nice, and had the rest of the day to do what we wanted. We went for some lunch (I got crab soup and it was disgusting!) and wandered around. Cat Ba island is a bit of a dump. We could have been in malia. So we decided just to chill out and read our books. We had a free dinner in the hotel restaurant which was a really nice vietnamese buffet. Then we called it a night.