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Day 3:
After a buffet breakfast at the inspirational KOTO restaurant, dedicated to training disadvantaged street children in hospitality, we drive to Halong Bay (about 4 hours) and board our private traditional sailing junk.
The port was unbelievably busy and we were so glad we had this all organised by the Intrepid or we could have been waiting forever! We enjoy lunch while cruising past some of the thousands of limestone karsts within this World Heritage site. We walked through the famous Ha Long Bay caves, which has some very interesting stalactites (if you used your imagination). Once back on the boat we decided to all go for a swim in the bay, the water was lovely and warm, however Tuan didnt fancy a dip because for the Vietnamese this is their winter! The water however held a little suprise for us which we only discovered when we got out the water and found we were covered in brown algea, so straight in the shower and back on the top deck to kick back and relax before dinner. After dinner we all chilled out again on the deck chatting, watching the sun set and counting stars before we went to sleep in our little cabins!
Day 4:
On our way back to Hanoi we stopped off at the Dong Trieu Ceramic Village. Here we admired the men and women who hand made the blue and white pottery (made in the same way it was hundreds of years ago). I sat down with one of them and helped her paint some of the pottery plates. It was so relaxing i was gutted when we had to leave. When we got back to the hotel we decided to go on a little sight seeing trip of the Old Quater. Along the way though we lost half our group because some Banana Sellers decided to let us take photos and then demanded cash! another scam to watch out for....nothing is free.
Further along Alex, Chrisina and I decided to go and visit one of the lakes and its old bridge, here Christina nearly found herself without a mobile when one of the street sellers decided to come too close, selling us some postcards with a wandering hand. I soon put a stop to that when i hit his hand!!
Hanoi is sooooo busy, there are so many mopeds and cars and buses, to cross the road you have to just walk across with your eyes closed! Honestly its the only way. We stopped off at a little cafe (Little Hanoi) for a drink and then headed back to the hotel to meet with the rest of the group for dinner.
At 10pm we all headed off to the train station to catch our sleeper train to Hue, our next stop.
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