Halong Bay - Halong Bay, Vietnam
Halong Bay, Vietnam
The day had arrived and we were off to Ha Long Bay - one of many UNESCO World Heritage Sites in South East Asia. We were picked up from our hotel after a lovely breakfast, and having been waved off by the hotel staff, we were transported the 3.5 hours by minibus to Ha Long Bay.
We met a nice bunch of people on the way, and chatting to them made us realise how much we have seen and done over the last two months. An incredible amount. When we arrived at the boat terminal, we were split up from the group and sent on a different boat. It was a real shame as we had just started getting to know them and they were a really nice group. Never mind, we had another 20 people to meet on our boat.
A small boat took us to the ship or 'junk' as they are called, and guess what - we'd been upgraded again... a room with a balcony - there were only two rooms on the boat with a balcony. Bingo!
The views out in Ha Long bay were just absolutely beautiful, words nor pictures can describe how wonderful our views were. Over 2000 limestone cliffs covered with greenery were everywhere you looked, with boats dotted about cruising around. The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments to form a view that is truly spectacular, and can only be fully appreciated by seeing it for real.
We sailed past a few floating villages, these people live here all their lives, totally self sufficient and most the time never even go on shore. There is even a floating school for the children. Imagine living there your whole life and not stepping foot on land.
We had lunch on the boat before going to explore the Sung Sot cave. It was literally the biggest and most incredible cave we have ever seen. It was like an arena, it was huge!! The stalagmite hung from the ceiling in the most amazing formations, a really impressive view. Our tour guide pointed out a number of interesting formations in the rock - one that looked like a dinosaur, a turtle, and then there was the phallic rock which jutted off some stalagmite that hung from the roof. He described it as 'it makes lady happy!'. It actually pointed to a round hole in the ceiling, but i'll leave that to your imagination what that was meant to be...!! As we came out of the cave, there was a monkey perched up on the rock watching everyone pass by. He was loving the attention, and when he looked at you, it was scary to see how human like he was!!
After walking round the cave for about an hour (yes, that's how big it was), we went back to the boat before heading to a small beach. The beach wasn't anything special itself, but relaxing in the water with such a wonderful view of Ha Long Bay around us was pretty cool.
We headed back to the boat for sunset which unfortunately wasn't visible because of the clouds, it was a shame as it would have made a truly incredible photo. We got changed and tucked into our dinner. There were so many dishes - loads of fresh seafood which Ash enjoyed, while I went for the more meaty dishes as I hate seafood. Kind of embarrassing to admit that to the staff on the ship that as they catch the seafood fresh each day.
After dinner, we retired to the top deck for some drinks while admiring how pretty all the boats lit up in the bay looked, and chatting to a family from New Zealand.
The next day we were up early to go Kayaking! Something we had never done properly before, but it was good fun! We kayaked for about an hour round a cove which was cool - our arms ached after a while of paddling, left, right, left, right....
We headed back to the boat to shower and check out of the cabin, before having a mini cookery lesson and making our own fresh spring rolls. We had a nice lunch before heading back to the mainland to catch the bumpy bus ride back to Hanoi. I'm not sure how the road had changed so much in 24 hours but it was certainly no where near as bumpy when we came - it must have been a ****** bus with rubbish suspension that we had the pleasure of travelling on, on the way back.
On arrival back at the hotel, the staff once again were delighted to see us. We went out in hunt of some more souvenirs from our time in Vietnam, this time we bought some lovely matt black lacquer plates with a square of shell in the middle, then went for dinner at a rooftop restaurant, a western treat once again.
The next morning, our flight to the Thai islands via Bangkok left relatively early so the hotel made us a mini packed breakfast to take with us. They even emailed us a week after we left to see how we were getting on. Impeccable customer service.