Hanoi & Halong Bay

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Hey everyone!!

So on Sunday the 9th of September we caught a plane with Laos Airlines from Luang Prabang in Laos to Hanoi in Vietnam, our plane was a (very) small ATR72 Laura was panicking when she saw the size of it haha but it was a very smooth 50 minute flight and we even got served food!! When we landed in Hanoi we bumped straight into Orlagh at immigration, she had just flown in from China and we had not seen her in a year!! It was a brill reunion full of laughs and happy tears lol 😊 The girls were so happy to be reunited and Ian was beginning to realise what he had let himself in for with us yapping for 2 whole weeks!!

We stayed in the Sans Souci IV it was a really nice hotel with an amazing shower, something we had really really missed!!! After we checked in (and were fussed over by the staff) we headed out to find some food...unfortunatly our hunger and tiredness were unable to cope very well with the manic streets of Hanoi. The streets are just packed with motorbikes all beeping their horns for NO reason!! Trying to cross the road was just plain scary...we all held hands and just walked slowly across several lanes of motorbikes whizzing around us haha we found a place to eat and quickly went back to our quiet hotel for some well earned rest.

The next day we booked our trip to Halong Bay through our hotel for $145 each. Then we set off to explore Hanoi, the traffic was still as bad at 10am!!! We visited ho chi minh mausoleum but unfortunately he is away in Russia getting himself cleaned up so we didn't get to see him. We spent the rest of the day walking around Hanoi and booked some tickets to see water puppetry that night which was not great but it was cheap and something that we had to do.

The next morning we were picked up at 8am and we had a 4 hour bus journey to Halong Bay which was sooo bumpy, the roads in Vietnam are shocking!! Once there our tour guide Peter put us on a small speed boat which took us to our big junk boat called the Halong Dragon Cruiser. We were very suprised with how nice our cabins were. Ours was very spacious, it had aircon and a lovely bathroom with a fantastic shower and the decor was all mahogany.

After check in we were served a lovely lunch on the boat (the food on the boat for the whole 3 days was fantastic!!) as the boat sailed around Halong Bay we ate lunch and took in the breath taking scenery. After lunch we were taken back on to the small boat and we visited a cave, we got to kayak around Halong Bay and then we went to an island and went swimming. We had a brill day. We got back to our boat at 6pm and dinner was served at 7pm. The evening we had complimentary foot massages as we had drinks on the deck gazing at the stars you could even partake in a spot of fishing. We met a lovely family from Wellington in New Zealand, Bex, Andy and their two gorgeous boys Arlo and Ryan (we are hoping to visit them when we get to NZ early next year!)

The following morning after a lovely sleep we were up early and after breakfast we were back on the small boat which took us to an Oyster farm and then to Monkey Island for swimming (no monkeys here lol) then we had lunch on the boat and we sailed to Cat Ba Island, unfortunately for Laura we were now out in the open sea and it was a bit rougher so Laura wasn't feeling too good! Eventually we arrived on the island and we cycled around the National Park, the scenery again was beautiful!! Our tour guide Peter said he was taking us for a short walk through the forest...this walk turned into a hike in the jungle which none of us were prepared for, we had to make our way over unstable log bridges, walk through streams, climb through bushes to a cave that had bats flying all around and we had NO torches!! It's funny when we look back now but at the time...not so much lol!! Most people from the boat had opted to stay in bungalows in the national park that evening but us 3 had opted to stay on the boat so we had the smaller boat all to ourselves as we sailed back to Halong Bay, so we chilled out on top deck chatting!! Back at the boat we bought food and beers from the crazy lady in the rowing boat (which the staff on the big boat fine you for!! so we had to be careful and sneak them into our room haha) then had dinner and another lovely night on deck having drinks and chatting 😊

The next morning the weather took a turn!! We sailed back to meet our bus in the middle of a storm....unfortunately we had to leave our junk boat and get on a smaller boat to take us back to shore!! The thunder was SO loud and the lightening was flashing all around us, the rain was torrential..we were SOAKED except for Ian who had is stupid poncho ha!!! (we were just jealous!) The tour guide stuck us in a taxi with 4 others from our boat and told the taxi to take us to a particular restaurant where we would all have lunch and the bus would meet us...our taxi driver was trying to drive in the storm with no wipers on!! The roads were flooded, his clutch did not work and then he got lost!! DISASTER! We eventually found the rest of our tour group, had lunch and headed back to Hanoi on a 4 hours bus journey in soaking wet clothes lol!! But we had a fantastic time!!

We checked back into our hotel for one more night and the following morning we booked our open bus ticket with The Sinh Tourist company which got us 5 bus journeys to get us from here to Saigon for $46!! Then we met up with Conor who we had met in Laos and spent the day visiting the Hoa Lo Prison. We caught our sleeper bus at 6pm to Hue. This was a fun experience haha the bus is full of very small bunk beds!! So we just lay there for 15 hours and tried to sleep, it wasn't as bad as we thought and we all got a little sleep but as ever the roads were not smooth at all so we bounced all the way!!!!

Bye for now 😊

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