Blogs from Northeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 35

We managed to get off the train in Haiphong without too much trouble. We had breakfast en route but neither of us had a clue what it was! Some kind of weird doughy thing with some pork meat in the middle-not your typical breakfast! As soon as we were off the train, a girl told us that she would organise a taxi for us as the boat for Cat Ba was leaving really soon. Started to think, hmmm and tried to avoid her. Got in a taxi and went to the port. and funny enough, there was the same girl again telling us to 'Quickly, quickly buy our tickets for 150000 dong as the boat is going to leave'. We had been told it was cheaper and just really had the feeling we were being ripped ... read more

Sunday, 22nd August Via a relatively poor night of sleep due to the fact there was a storm and our roof had more holes in it than the plot of Star Wars (see Robot Chicken) we got onto a 3 hour bus to Ha Long Bay. We hadn't booked onto a party boat but were quite surprised that the average age of our tour group was older than Helen Mirren (what she looks like, not is). Of course we made the classic commission-for-bus-driver stop on the way, panicky to see the Israelis from the bus on a similar tour (please not the same boat). At the port was more p*ss*ing around but a view of things to come. A thousand junkers in front of a thousand islands. At the port I was groped on the bum ... read more

An 8:00am checkout and a four hour drive with our guide Mr Tom and driver took us to Ha Long bay. The journey stretched through through rice fields, industrial areas (including a huge Canon factory), and towns of various sizes. We shared the road with all kinds of vehicles (cars, lorries, bicycles, walkers and the ubiquitous scooters) all disregarding the rules of the road with great tolerance for other drivers. We also had a range of fellow-travellers, including cows (some oin foot, one strapped securely to a scooter), pigs (at least three per scooter), boxes of chickens and ducks, as well as fruit, bread and veg of all kinds all moving along at speed. Mr Tom was a fount of all knowledge, explaining Vietnamese history, culture and language, while pointing out various exciting or interesting sights ... read more

Halong Bay was amazing and definitely up there in the favourite places I've been this year. We had a lovely boat and the bus ride wasn't even that bad, but it did seem to take a really long time. There were the four of us, two couples, Stefan and a French family. Everyone was really lovely. The first day we got the boat out to the islands whilst we had an amazing lunch and then cruised around the bay taking photos and marvelling generally. We went out on kayaks and spent some time jumping off the boat into the water, loads of fun. To start with, even though they were in the same kayak, Crissi and Pete looked like they were racing each other, it was so funny to watch. Dinner that evening was relaxed and ... read more

Halong Bay, 17th - 19th May 2010 Monday 17th and we were up bright and early to catch our bus to Halong Bay. We climbed onto the bus to be welcomed by Tony our tour guide for the three days. Tony, although Vietnamese spoke very good English, but also had a Hi De Hi approach to his tour guide persona which we could see could get a little annoying. After 3.5 hours on a mini bus on the mad, mad roads of Vietnam (witnessing double overtaking towards onward traffic) we finally pulled into the harbour area of Halong Bay and after a brief wait we boarded our junk boat which would be our home and means of transport for the next couple of days. Halong Bay is a mystical and inspiring natural wonder where 3,000 or ... read more