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Published: July 28th 2006
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They are very proud of their country. It's not too hard to enjoy Halong Bay to say the least... Hey everybody, its been a lazy few days since our last update. We arrived in Bangkok on the morning of the 21st and visited MBK Mall where we all ordered tailor-made suits and sport coats. We all ended up getting 1 suit and 1 sport coat for $250 Canadian...could've gone cheaper but we chose some higher quality material etc... Our flight date was screwed up so we ended up spending the night at D&D Inn in Bangkok again but it ended up being a good idea because we were pretty burnt out. We spent the next day lazing around the pool and checking prices of various things, our plane left at 7pm that night and it was 2 hours late... again... our airline "Air Asia" has been late every single time we have flown with them :P We got into Hanoi (northern Vietnam) pretty late and went right to bed. Hanoi has been the capital of Vietnam for almost 1000 years and the city is nick named Them Lam .. we think.. which means Rising Dragon, some of the locals still refer to the city by this name. Interesting fact eh? haha...
We woke up the next day and planned
Picture of a Postcard...
Isn't this nice....pfft! our activities for the time we would be spending here. The first two days were spent wandering around the Old Quarter. This portion of the city has a heavy french influence because it was colonized by the French (not just Hanoi), and it shows it in the construction etc.... There is not much to do around Hanoi so we spent the majority of our time eating :P A bowl of Pho (beef noodle soup) is less than a dollar, and beer are .60 so we ate and drank about five times a day:P (And it's not said as pho its pha :P) Another interesting fact...pfft! At night we went to a local cafe and ordered ice coffee's for .60 and just relaxed, its too hot to do anything so we copied the locals and hid in the air conditioned coffee shops 😊
On the third day we left for Halong Bay which is on the East Coast of Vietnam. We got on a big boat called a "junker" (though it was not Junk...it was pretty nice to our surprise!!!) and spent the day cruising through the 1,996 islands that make up the area called Halong Bay. Our guides name
Where are we goin?
Bryan and Will look confused as we start our journey out in Halong Bay... was "Cong" and he introduced himself as the first four letters of CONGratulations haha , funny guy, he is in one of the pics below. We stopped at a huge cave along the way and it turned out to be pretty impressive. The site is recognized by numerous governing bodies for its unique nature (check the pics below). They had funny penguin garbage cans all throughout the caves, kinda weird even though they said everything in the caves were natural :P Another funny pic with Bryan and another inanamite animal :P That night we ate on the boat and slept in our own private rooms (2ppl), the rooms ended up being better than some of the places we have stayed. They had A/C (that we weren't allowed to use) private bathrooms and nice beds ... it was great, but pretty hot 😊 We all fell asleep on the top deck of the boat listening to music... it's really peaceful just lying there looking at the starry sky (how romantic....pfft). During the night Bryan woke up with something on his leg, he brushed it off and went back to sleep, the next morning the guys beside us showed us pics of
Boats in the Bay...
View from just outside the cave....not too shabby eh? a spider that was like 6 inches across they had found in their room .... scared the hell out of Bryan for sure !!!
The next day we woke up early and went on an unexpected trek...shiiiit! They neglected to tell us that we would be climbing to the top of a friggin' mountain. We all managed to do it with a few minor injuries, bascially because mountain climbing in flip-flops is not a good idea :P We were soaking wet and the sweat from our feet was making us slip on our flip-flops haha. Will was pretty hurting that day, he thinks he pulled a stomach muscle or something, but he made it to the top, we all suffered (sweating picture below). After the crazy trek we took a bus to our hotel on Cat Ba island, the largest one in the Archipelago. The hotel was super nice with really good food. We got a short lunch break which was followed by some kayaking. The sights were amazing, we paddled under a 3 foot opening into a secluded lagoon with no access, besides the tiny opening. After that we paddled to a secluded beach and did a little
Dragon in Halong Bay
Nice view as the front of our boat tears through Halong Bay... swimming in the bath tub temperature water😊 Will was still pertty hurtin' so he kept paddling crooked and Bryan had to steer all the time :P Raj got stuck with a lady from Holland who struggled pretty bad, so he was pretty hurtin from doing all the paddling. Overall it was good exercise and goodtimes. At night, in honor of Bryan's 24th birthday, we headed out and played some pool and foozball with our fellow shipmates, a random group of English, Dutch, Canadain, French, and a few other people. Will and Rajan bought Bryan a ton of shots because they are super cheap.... The next morning was rough... to say the least, waking up at 7:30 am hungover for a boat ride is torture in our opinions. Among the people we met were 2 Canadian girls from Toronto (Adele and Shawna, one of them was engaged after a month of dating someone, pretty random, anyway they thought that the three of us were a frickin' Boy Band..we were pissed to say the least... haha.... But to entertain them we posed for a boy band picture with John, an English guy we met ... do we really look like a boy
What are you lookin' at?
Will begins to disappear into the depths of the cave!!! bad ... come on :P We didn't put the picture up....too embarrassing! (by the way we check the comments, so be careful what you say, you will have to deal with us when we get home (Murray) :P)
The boat ride back to the dock was pretty relaxing and we all slept most of the way. We got back ate a huge lunch and then fell asleep for the 3 hours minibus ride back to Hanoi. Then we we got back we ate again ... surprise..surprise.... then it was bedtime... pretty lazy day in other words. Today we will be heading on a city tour to see all the major sites around Hanoi, the same night we will be leaving for Hoi An which is supposed to be a good place to shop. Hoi An is a 14 hour bus ride away, looking forward to that...yah right :P After that it is off to Nha Trang, which is a quiet beach town in the south as well. Our last stop will be Ho Chi Minh (or Saigon) for a few days before starting the journey back to home sweet home....
We found out it costs $230 USD to
Hmmmmmm???
Will got a little aroused when he saw this rock-hard structure...haha fly out of Ho Chi Minh .... which sux ... so we are taking an 8 hour bus ride back to Cambodia (Phnom Penh) to fly back to Bangkok, the total cost of this option is around 100 USD, with some obvious added suffering...haha :P Our travel plans are pretty much the worst we could have done, but we went where we wanted when we wanted so no regrets .... In Bangkok we will have 3 days to pick up our suits and finish our shopping before heading home... 😊 The next update will be from Nha Trang ....... take care and we all hope you enjoyed our blog....see you in less than 3 weeks!!!
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Nick
non-member comment
Haha...
Dude... Bryan's been getting all the action! Haha... How are you managing to convince to take these pictures?!?! I would have thought it woudla been Raj getting those kinda pictures taken :P Heh... Glad to hear you boys got nice and hammed on Bryan's bday. Wish I was still there drinkin away with you boys. Lookin forward to seeing the Boy Band pic when you get back home :P Haha And WTF is up with Will's hair?!?! How tall is that hawk!??! Like a foot off of yer head?? LOL! Get out the scissors bud! Haha