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Published: August 7th 2009
Halong Bay in Northeast Vietnam was without a doubt the highlight of our trip so far. We organised a two night tour of the bay from our base in Hanoi and were collected from our hotel early the day after we arrived in Hanoi. It was a three hour drive to Halong Bay where we boarded our boat and were immediately treated to a big lunch before settling into our room on board our junk boat, we would spend the first night on their boat and the second night on Cat Ba Island. We then set sail through the most breath-taking scenery imaginable while sitting on deck with a cold beer in hand. We stopped at cave where we wandered through the many rock formations, before we climbed what felt like 342 million steps to a viewpoint overlooking the bay. The view was well worth the effort though. After another hour of sailing we dropped anchor, and decided to do some swimming and jumping off the top deck of the boat. This was great fun mostly except for the two of our group that got stung by jellyfish. Then it was kayaking for an hour and while out on the water
we watched the most amazing sunset over the bay and then made our way back to the junk ship for dinner and drinking.
We awoke early after a great night’s sleep with the gentle role of the boat and after breakfast we transferred to a smaller boat and made our way to Cat Ba Island. After rowing to shore, we began our hike through the jungle. This was a much tougher trek than we thought as we were battling through rough jungle but was well worth it. We have seen more than our fair share of big poisonous spiders, centipedes, stick insects the size of my foot and butterfly the size of bats we returned to the boat where we spent the afternoon swimming and relaxing. Then it was on to the inhabited side of the island where we checked into our hotel. That night was spent out with our group and went out for dinner and drinking until we could drink no more or at least until the bar closed, whichever came first. And then the bar really did close so we had to leave and go back to our hotel.
The final day started
Halong Bay
Gemma on the deck of our boatoff with our complimentary buffet breakfast at 7am which believe us we took full advantage of. After Stephen feasted on a fried breakfast and a bowl of spaghetti bolognaise (we know it was a surprise to us too), a bowl of fruit, juice and coffee it was back to our boat and back to Halong City.
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