Halong Bay

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26/10/2010 - 29/10/2010

After coming back from Sapa and spent a day chilling in Hanoi I booked again a 3 day trip to Halong Bay. This area is already UNESCO world heritage, but the government is even trying to put it on the list of world wonders; so had great expectations.

Some already warned me a bit of the lousy tour organisation....and in fact it was the worse concerning organization, planning, guiding, accomodation, etc. Plans would change continuously, extra fees would suddenly be demanded, people who paid the double of what I paid (okay I only paid 45 US) had the same crappy rooms, crappy food...and there is no point in discussing with them, the quick buck principle overrules clearly.
But you have to take the good with the bad. And the good thing was that we had a very nice, cool group! Our group was even fortunate the first day/night. Normally we would spend the night on a small not fancy boat, bit there was a kind of defect and our guide arranged us a new boat: the Halong Party Cruiser! It was bigger, had nicer rooms and had a full fancy karaoke system! We did honour to its name and that night singing, drinking and dancing were on the menu.

The Bay is really beautiful, just cruising around with the boat; did some kayaking as well. And we spent some time on the Monkey island which had a nice small beach, and yes also some monkeys were running around.

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