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
... read more