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Hi all
This is Mandy.
After the third attempt we have given up on loading photos, so sorry, but you will have to wait until we get home. The internet here is just too slow - well at least the ones in the internet cafes.
Now, onto other stuff.
We just got back to Hanoi from Halong Bay. As some of you know from the text messages, Amanda asked me to marry her and I said yes. I will let her do her own blog also, but it made a very special trip even more wonderful. I love my slapper very much and now she will be mine for ever. We have agreed on a long engagement until Johnny Howard decides that we should be allowed to be equal Australians. Until that point, we are fiances - which has a nice ring to it. Somewhat like the oversized jewel that Amanda presented me to fulfil the requirement of a 'big rock' - I'm sure plastic is a rock, somewhere.
Halong Bay was just magical. Its's the land that time forgot. Crystal clear water, huge rock formations towering out of the sea, sheer cliff faces. Magical. Day one we had a 4 hour bus ride from Hanoi to the bay. We met our other tour members - luckly we had a good group. Three girls travelling from the NZ - one a brit, one south african and one and Aussie, Amber from Canberra and Alex from the Uk the token boy. We were all in our late 20s early 30s and made a great group. Alex had a ball surrounded by women.
We transferred to the boat and off we went into Halong Bay, along with about 150 other tour boats. Sigh. We then motored into the main part of the bay and visisted the caves, along with about 300 other tour boats. Sigh. We managed to shake most of the boats and spent the rest of the afternoon swimming off the boat. Drinking Vodka as the sunset on the water - its a hard life. My wife chose this very romantic setting to pull me aside and we sat at the edge of the back of the boat alone watching the sun set. I'll let her full you in on the proposal details. We went to sleep tht night with the light rain hitting the deck. Lovely.
The next morning the lovely light rain turned into proper rain and our kayking looked like a very wet affair. By the time we had trasferred boats and sorted out our kayaks we had not only lost all of the other tour boats (yay), but the rain also decided to go elsewhere. We had the most fantastic day paddling around the bays, in and out of the islands and landing on the beach for a swim, or jumping off the boat (i did the girlie screams and left the real jumping to the others). Swimming in the middle of the bays made you feel like there was no one else in the world. It was amazing. Sorry we cant share the photos you will just have to wait in suspense.
We stayed at cat ba island for the second night - Brad Howarth was right - its a dump. The hotel was OK in a wall to wall tiled, tour group kinda way. At night the main strip of the beach was lit up like a casino vomited on it. Yuck.
We headed back to Hanoi this morning - bus to the boat, small boat to the larger boat, large boat to the bus. We are waiting to get on a train to Sapa tonight, so it will most probably be a few more days between blogs.
Ok, enough for now, Amanda is going to write some stuff in a seperate blog.
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