Halong Bay

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Tuesday we headed off on our bus trip to Halong Bay where we took a 4 star cruise on Dragon's Pearl Number 2. Beautiful day – sensational boat, 7 course meal to start the tour! We stopped at a beautiful beach on one of the islands and went kayaking (where Neil kayaked past a girl he knew in Townsville – small world) followed by taking photos of a beautiful sunset (we didn't realise how rare it was at this time of year to have such a great sunny day). Later in the evening we headed up to the cave on the same island where our boat had docked to have our 9 course meal (lunch was amazing)... the cave used to be inhabited by the locals until the tour company decided it was too good to be left alone and paid them out to move to the local fishing village - took them a number of years to agree but they eventually left.

If you ever had to live in a cave - I would suggest that one - I would happily live there myself if I could take my wardrobe with me - haha. The 9 course meal was amazing and the chef even did food sculptures out of pineapples and watermelons - photos below. It was a lovely night until about 3 hours later when I was in bed back on the boat and started to get stomache cramps - by morning I was as sick as a dog and couldn't leave the room (or the bathroom). This lasted until 2 in the afternoon at which point I was determined to get out and join our tour group for the tour of the local fishing village (which was all on water) and local school. I lasted but I don't know how. We got back on the boat and sat around chatting with the various people until the late afternoon at which point I was back to feeling R.S. and went back to sleep. Woke up for dinner - (not that I was eating - but I at least wanted to be sociable) and I lasted 2 of the courses before excusing myself and leaving for bed - at which point I fainted outside only to be caught by our tour guide and was half-carried back to the room. Raging fevers kept me up most of the night - they gave me the worst tasting runny porridge I've ever tasted and one of the other ppl in our tour gave me hydrolyte which I think worked as I had already taken all my drugs and Neil's drugs but to no avail. Nothing worked.

I was better in the morning and managed some toast for breakie - lucky as it was our last day. From the 2nd day onwards there was no rain by very very cloudy and misty. Haunting considering where we were. Halong Bay was truly beautiful and I thoroughly enjoyed just sitting on the top deck at night, listening to the quiet and looking at the stars and giant rocks climbing from the water – it was eerily picturesque. We got off the boat after lunch (I ate rice and still felt ill). Back to the bus for a 5 hour trip back to Hanoi – joy when you aren’t well. I was motion sick for most of the way and was very very sick of long bus rides by this time. I spent the evening in our hotel cuddled up under my blankets. Neil went out for dinner as I couldn't bear the thought of food.

We left the following morning me for Hue and Neil for HCM city to fly back to Malaysia to see his folks.

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Photos

Floating village
There is a tiny girl in the background rowing a boat around!