Day 353 - Sea Kayaking

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It was great waking up early on the junk, with the temperature still cool but the sun shining and hardly any other boats in sight. We had breakfast and then transferred to a smaller boat which took us to a very secluded spot where we got into our sea-kayaks. These were very good quality - another reason to choose Handspan - and we set off exploring the islands with the sun beating down. The kayaks are perfect for this type of job, being very stable and steered by a rudder attached to the rear-paddler’s pedals. We went under a small arch maybe 5m high and 10m wide and emerged into a lagoon hundreds of metres across and with very high cliffs on all sides. It was just amazing, and precisely what we’d come to see. Eventually we reached another boat where we had lunch (identical to the two meals we had yesterday but still very nice!) and a bit of a rest before heading off again. By now it was ridiculously hot so we went slowly and hugged the shade by the base of the cliffs, now and again speeding up to cross some sunny water. Just as we reached exhaustion we arrived at a private beach where we relaxed for a while before taking the boat to Cat Ba island, the biggest island in Halong Bay and the only inhabited one.

We checked into our hotel, ate dinner, wandered around a little bit - it’s quite like Vietnam-meets-Blackpool - and went to bed extremely happy that we’d forked out extra for this trip. We heard of some others who weren’t so lucky and kept being asked to pay more for pretty basic things that should obviously have been included in their tour price, like the transfer from the dock to the hotel, and ultimately they had all their things stolen. A clearer example of false economy is hard to think of!

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