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Published: December 17th 2015
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Thursday 12th November 2015 Today we booked to spend 2 days and overnight on a boat in the beautiful Ha Long bay. After an early 7am breakfast, the minibus arrived to collect us from our hotel at just before 8am and we joined the other 14 people that would be on our boat and our tour guide, Binh. The journey to the port took 4 hours with a designated 'tourist toilet stop' at the halfway point, with the main aim being to encourage you to buy whatever was on offer in the attached gift shop. Strangely this gift shop specialised in huge ceramic sculptures, naked women, chinese dragons, lions, etc, not the most convenient souvenir to get home?!
On arrival at port in Ha Long city, we were transferred from the minibus to a small boat for the short journey to our boat, the Fantasea #3. From a range of choices we had gone for the budget option, costing us $95 pp. Checking into our cabin we were pleasantly surprised. Although small, it was clean, compact and had a bit of a rustic, old worldy feel to it with a window that would eventually give us a great view
of the limestone karsks emerging from the water. Thankfully we'd been able to leave our big backpacks at the hotel, so were travelling light for our little room. After popping the bag in the room, we rejoined the group for lunch. Being a smallish group we quickly got talking with people and found ourselves in quite a diverse group covering Luxembourg, Spain, Columbia, Poland, Australia, England and South Korea, some people travelling long term & others on holiday. After a big lunch of seafood & sticky rice, we all went to the open air top deck of the boat to get our first glimpse of the bay. We seemed to leave the grey, rainy morning back in the city making way for bright blue sky and turquoise waters as we approached the huge limestone formations making up the bay. From the top of the boat we got a great panoramic view, but even better was the view from the front of boat on the lower deck. Being completely open and at sea level you got a stunning almost worms eye view of the huge rocks as we passed them.
Our first stop in Ha Long bay were some caves,
referred to by our guide as the 'Surprise Caves'. They were huge caves, illuminated with coloured lights for dramatic effect. Binh spent the tour pointing out rocks shaped like animals, some were impressive, others took some imagination. I don't want to ruin the 'surprise' of surprise cave but I think the photo says it all. We seemed to be the only people taking this particular photo, immature or creative? We'll let you decide. Tour of the caves over, we headed back to the main boat to sail to the next activity; kayaking. The area we stopped at was in a small bay surrounded by the tall rock formations. Setting off in our 2 man kayak we headed towards a huge cliff face where Binh had mentioned we might see monkeys. We did indeed. From up close, we saw the monkeys scurrying at dizzying heights and angles across the front of the rocks, fighting, bombing into the water, and when the kayaking crowd had all gathered at the foot of the rock ready to take pictures of the playful little monkeys, launching into their very own x-rated sex show!?! Leading off from the main area where our boat was anchored was
a small cave that you could kayak through, opening up into a wide lagoon framed with towering rocks. We were lucky enough to be in the water as the sun set, getting some great views of the orange sky silhouetted against the dark rocks. Worn out, we headed back to the main boat for a hot shower and dinner.
Post-dinner with beers in hand, we all made our way to the open top deck to enjoy the warm night. We were entertained by the stories of Mr Chun, a 65yr old South Korean man, who had arrived prepared with a 1l bottle of Jack Daniels, strong Korean soju and a cheerfully optimistic view of life. Numerous shots of Jack Daniels later, a good few shared stories from around the world and a funny attempt to match make Mr Chun's 2 sons with 2 of the Spanish girls onboard via Skype, we all called it a night. I found Chris fishing for squid off the side of the boat but having only come close to catching a leaf, he reluctantly admitted defeat for the evening,
Friday 13th November 2015 We had an early start to the day with
coffee and breakfast being served at 7am. The blue skies of yesterday had disappeared and had been replaced with some ominous looking grey clouds. With the morning mist and clouds, the rocks looked almost eerie like a scene from Shutter Island. Actually equally as breathtaking as in the sunshine, in a dramatic movie-set kind of way. We were heading to a part of a bay where we could climb one of the rocks to get a panoramic view of the whole bay and finish with a swim in the warm bay waters. Binh had come prepared with bright blue poncho's just in case those clouds turned ugly. And good thing he did. Just as we reached the end of the climb, the rain started hammering down. With or without a poncho we all got drenched! The idea of swimming in the bay in the rain didn't appeal to everyone, but we thought why not! 5 of our group braved it, including me & Chris Potter. The water was so warm and setting so unique, it would have seemed to a shame not to have a paddle while we were there.
After the swim, the boat arrived to collect us
so we could have a hot shower and lunch before checking out of our cabins. Before lunch Binh organised a small cooking class so we could learn how to make Vietnamese spring rolls. The idea was we could have them for lunch, but our rolls definitely didn't look anything like the chefs?! The last few hours on the boat were filled with chatting, jokes, Colombian music care of our Colombian traveler, and a very entertaining rendition of Gangnam style by the boats barman before we took the small boat back to the harbour to begin the 3 hour journey back to Hanoi. We both really enjoyed the trip, the views were amazing in both the sunshine and the eerie cloudiness and the activities were all great, the kayaking definitely being the best. We were lucky to be on a boat with a nice group who all seemed to chat and laugh effortlessly. I think 2 days and 1 night was probably enough. There was a couple on our boat doing an extra night, but they got transferred to a day boat then later a night boat, which just seemed a bit of a faff, wasting more time than you gained.
Getting back to the hotel after a long day, food was the only thing on our minds so we headed out to the local restaurant we'd been to on our first night. And after copious amounts of good food and a few beers we were ready for bed!
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