Halong Bay 4 & 5 June - Day 41 and 42

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We were really looking forward to these 2 days of our trip. It was one of the special sites we wanted to see, our expectations were high!

The minivan that came to pick us up quickly filled up as it stopped at a few more hotels.
These were the people who were going to be our travel companions for the next 2 days.
There was an Australian couple with their 8 year old son, a French couple, a Russian couple from Yekaterinburg and 2 Australian man traveling together. It proved to be a good group which is an important point for such a trip.

Our boat was a wooden junk offering cabins with individual showers, a dining deck and even a sunbathing deck.

From Hanoi the trip to Halong Bay takes about 4 (long) hours. But it is worth the effort.
After a welcome drink, we started cruising the bay, visited a cave, went canoing into some very pretty places and ended up with a swim in the bay.

On board the food was gorgeous, loads of seafood of course (king prawns crabs, etc...).
needless to say that a bit of luxury was welcome after much more modest experiences since we left London.

The interaction with the other participants was excellent as well. We had a lot to speak about with the couple from Russia as we were in the city a few weeks earlier.

Enough words for now, the pictures will speak for themselves

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Photos

Halong Bay
Having lunch with Dmitri and Elana from Yekaterinburg, Russia.

Halong Bay
The pilot got some help!

Halong Bay
Just a stalagtite...

Comments

[van]

Hi. Your trip looks great! thanks for posting it online. i was just wondering which ha long tour company you went with. It looks really serene. I am heading there at teh end of the year and want to try it out. Thanks

[Dmitry and Elena]

Hello from Dmitry and Elena from Yekaterinburg. We spent with pleasure our 2 days trip on a Halong Bay in your company. You have a lot of interesting photoes from a different contries and we will monitor your future pictures with interest. If you visit our city yesterday or a day before yesterday you could see a president of your contry (Yekaterinburg was a place of the first meeting of summit BRIC). We want to whish you a good luck in your trips. From Russia with love.