Day 9 - Ha Long Bay And The Boat That Rocked!!

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7am feeling amazinlgy sleepy but must catch the bus! So after dragging our backsides down stairs after the worst sleep of the trip we go and wait for the bus by Lee's travel agency. When the bus arrives we jump on and are suprised its a transit! good times at least its not as dodgey as some of the things we have seen.
3 and 1/2 hours on the bus to the harbour we pick up others for a total of 16 people the tour guide has brought along a stool to dsit on by the door (genius!) So after falling asllep most of the way and acting like one ofthem nodding dogs you get in the car we arrive, Say hello to a few of the people we will be travelling with and get on the boat at the stop inbetween i should mention we say some pretty nice sculptures which cost more money than sense even for Nam. Once we got on the boat we started to socialise abit and get to know the plan for the day. We met some Americans (Bobby and Jess) and started having some beers this set the scene for what would be the rest of the day.



after eating (good food by the way) we went to see the Suprising cave! (one of the natural wonders) even saw a monkey there which was far more realistic than the "monkeys etc" that are built into the cave. We also saw a turtle rock which people gave money to in order to brng themselevs luck. I'm a firm beliver that the turtle rock was just that a rock and no amount of money I put there would bring me luck (how wrong I am? who knows)

So afterwards we went to a little beach with a pagoda at the top of a mountain (yes mountain) Challange accepted we missioned our way up to the top to see one of the most breathtaking views you could imagine. swimming in the sea was also cool. by this time I should mentionwe also had got to know the spanish girls and the Sweedish couple that were on our boat.

Back on the boat for food then(and more beer) we were told about how cheap the vodka is (rice Vodka very good!!) so we got a few bottols put in the freezer and cracked out the kareokee. (this proved to be an excellent descion as we all got involved and had an amazing time. Songs such as Barbie girl and Abba were belted out with the prescion that only a multi lingual group of people can do (I was drunk so I think amazing, Other people however may view this differently!)

Coming to the end of the night (yes this was a long day and yes there is alot I am leaving out to come back and fill in and yes I'd go as far to say its ranked up there as one of my favorite days in the last few years) the thunder storm hit the bay and my word what a sight the pagoda (see above) was good but sitting on top of a boat getting wetter than a wet thing is amazing sat on the boat chatting getting soaked and watching the lightning (listening to thunder) was undesecribable.

Bed was also amazing I slept so well.

I'd like to add in the bar tab for our room came to 1 million this is an amazing feat as we also filled our tick box up with the amount of beer/vodka we drank...going to bed prepared for the hangover.

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