Ha Long Bay

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Left Hanoi at 7:30 for 4 hour drive to Ha long Bay Guide was Chook (Chuc) who was an economics graduate and gave real insights into Vietnamese life as well as being really funny. He was excellent at organising as to arrive at the tourist spots when the majority of people had left. Even though Vega tours is a little more expensive the quality of the tour made it very worthwhile...but ask for Chook!! The junks are no longer painted white on a decree from the Prime Minister!! We cruised past islands and small floating homes while having a gourmet lunch. We had our own cabin with ensuite but the aircon only works when the engines are off. Visited Surprising Cave which was huge with lots of stallectites and mites and a "surprise". A little later we transfered to kayaks and paddled thru a metre high cave to get to the lagoon beyond. Swam off boat...Its drippy, sweaty hot. Moored for the night...15 other junks visable in the bay. Great meal of prawns, mussles, seafood, all on decorated plates.

Tues June 5

Woke to light rain and great vews over bay. Sailed to Titop Beach where we climbed the 420 steps for viewsover the bay. Weather cleared and we swam at the sandy beach. We then transferred to a smaller junk while those on the 2 day cruise went back to the start point. Awesome scenery as we headed out to sea and eventually up a narrow channel full of floating villages to Cat Ba Island. Picked up push bikes and rode along narrow concrete path to a village. Hiked up thru the jungle to Bat Cave. Chook then organised an absail down jungle vines. The younger people were quite trepidatious but Frank shamed them all by zipping down. He earnt himself the nickname of "Frank The Tank". We then climbed over the karst mountains and back down to the village. Had lunch on the boat...heaps of food . Kylie and Dany form the UK, 2 young Canadians and us decded to swim at Monkey Island while the older Danish couple stayed on the boat. The beach wa not so great with lots of people, lots of rubbish and no monkeys. Locals were selling live sea snakes and other sea creatures in plastic containers lapped by the high tide. It wa a bit grotty so we decide to swim back to the boat, not realising that Elvis, the Canadian boy, was not a strong swimmer but we got him back to the boat Ok. Motored to main town of Cat Ba. Stayed in awesome resort hotel with views over the bay. Chuc took us to drink local beer in hand made glasses at an open air table on the bridge at the end of the town. After many jugs we then staggered to the local market where Chuc organised a feed of squid washed down by shots of the local rice wine which was potent. (32% ethanol)

Wednesday June 6

Cruised back to Halong Town drinking shots of the rice wine. Lunch was a welcome relief!!

Back in Hanoi we picked up our main packs and taxied to the main train station where we caught a sleeper on the 7:30 train to Hue.

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Photos

Prawns
Meal on Junk