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Published: January 20th 2006
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We reached the top..
only to be greeted by a bunch of mist! DOH! Gonna back date this a bit otherwise my entry could go on for miles (or should that be kilometres?)
On tour: Ha Long Bay
Caves, Seafood & Relaxing
Overnight on boat.
Okay, Ha Long Bay, it seems like a century ago that I was out that way. It all started off with about a three hour drive to Ha Long City where we jumped over a few boats to get to ours.
There were about 18 of us on board the ship the first day that took us around Ha Long Bay with a couple of stops. We went to Surprising Cave which is surprise, surprise, a huge cave! I know this isn't going to sound very good (or that I'm a bit unappreciative) but when you've seen one cave, you've seen them all. Mind you, it was huge! Pictures on my camera would not do it justice since my flash is not THAT strong! We also made a stop off to climb a hill to see an awesome view of the Bay. Unfortunately it was a bit misty. But that's okay it was a nice hike up anyway. We capped off the day by dropping off a
Atop Ti Top.
This was taken on the first day when it was only a little bit misty... few passengers at Cat Ba Island where they stayed at the hotel and the remaining passengers opted to sleep overnight on the boat. Dinner on the boat was alright. I think that it is funny that they keep feeding us french fries..oh so Vietnamese. lol After dinner we basically just sat around chatting and our tour guide Thien came and sat at our table. He likes to tell the stories and wanted us to share in some too. His first story went on and on and on and I lost what he was trying to tell us. Then after what I'm guessing was ten minutes or more he "finishes" his story and looks at Bryan.."So, was that a good story?" Phew! Glad he didn't ask me that loaded question directly! Then he kept insisting Claire to tell us a story..or how about sing us a song? Too funny. That was day one.
The beginning of day two began with stories of rat's on board the boat. Or more specifically, rats in the two Swedish girls cabin! Apparently they found little "rat surprise droppings" on their pillows and then rats in their cabin so they hightailed it out of their
Claire and Bonnie aboard our ship...
that would take us back to Halong City. assigned cabin as fast as they could and slept upstairs with the crew. Thank goodness I sleep like a log because I didn't hear any scampering, which in retrospect is probably a good thing. A couple of the other cabins heard the rats but they did not receive any unwelcome visitors to their cabins. To top it all off, it turns out that the two Swedish girls paid EXTRA to get the best room on board the boat! That's a bunch of crap since all of the rooms onboard the boat are pretty much the same. Sarah, Claire and myself still shake our heads that the two Swedes paid $10/person for one night and Sarah, Claire and myself got two nights of adventure (second night in a hotel).
So all day we heard of the rats. I kind of got tired of all of the rat talk and I don't think our tour guide Thien really like it either. 😊
Day two was a bit more "advenuturous". We headed back to Cat Ba Island where we checked into our hotel and then got ready for a bit of trekking in the National Park. BTW, it is about 15,000
square hectares I think. I only tell you this fact because before we started our trek we watch a short film about the National Park. As we head off, Thien asks us, so how large is the park? Guess he was trying to make conversation but it seemed more like he was grilling us as to whether we were paying attention to the film or not. LOL
The trek would have been way nicer if it had been dry. So as you can probably guess, it was wet and super slippery. It didn't help that my so-called hiking boots turn into super duper skate skis in the mud! So as you can also probably guess by now, I slipped on my butt and my pants were just covered in mud. The trek both up and down was a bit "treacherous" but I managed. Oh and get this, once up top the view was all misty. DOH! I think that me and my pants just like to attract dirt and mud because after the trek I look around and our tour guide and a few others had barely a speck of mud on their pants! Or perhaps they just have super duper scotch guard or something. haha So I sat thru lunch with my super dirty pants on since I knew in the afternoon we'd be going kayaking. Plus I only brought one pair of pants to wear other than my pj’s!
Kayaking was super duper nice. We got off our ship and had to precariously balance on the floating dock like structure. Sort of like on a balance beam but with two beams if you know what I mean. Thank goodness the sore leg muscles were not yet affecting me otherwise I'd probably have fallen in! lol We got off of our ship, onto the floating dock and got into double kayaks. The waters were calm and we paddled to a "cave" like area where it was all nice and serene until of course I started to laugh. 😊 Sarah and I shared a kayak. It was funny. We were paddling more or less "in sync" and it felt like we weren't getting anywhere. Then we had the brilliant idea that maybe we should paddle "canoe" style. Amazingly enough this "technique" seemed to work better! LOL So of course this is what added to the hilarity of the whole situation and me breaking the "serene" moment. My pants were soaked almost all the way through from top to bottom (save part of the area by my cargo pocket..) I was joking that I should start washing my pants of all of the mud that were on them. lol
As I mentioned, the waters were nice and calm. Unfortunately upon closer inspection you could see all of the oil slicks and garbage floating everywhere. It is unfortunate to see how people are using the World as their personal garbage can...
Oh yes, I forgot to mention that we stopped off at Monkey Island to see what else...but some Monkeys. I was just worried that the Monkey's were going to attack me! Good thing for me they did not. Getting on and off the boat was another story! We got closer to Monkey Island where the boat dropped anchor and then put a plank down. No joke that it was about 45 degrees! Not being the most agile of people I was certain that I would fall in. Thank goodness it is nice being wrong sometimes. 😊 We were only on the island for something like 15 minutes..well if I knew that I would have stayed on deck. lol
Adventure filled day.
Trekking. Kayaking. What fun!
Muddy pants. Not fun.
Oh to top off day two, me trying to pack light only packed the one pair of pants with me. Well, I also packed my pink pajamas. So...there was nothing else for me to do but go out in my pj's at night! As you can probably imagine I was pretty self conscious. I probably shouldn't have been since you should see what some other people wear..I fit right in! lol Claire, Sarah and I bumped into two other volunteers (Eva and Chelsea) that were volunteering at other programs in Vietnam. That was pretty cool. So we met up after dinner for a bit of a chat and compared notes on our time in Ha Long Bay with hopes to catch up again in Ha Noi.
Day three. Once again boarded the boat via a hopping on and off a couple of other boats. I knew there would be a ton of boats going to/from Ha Long Bay but I can’t even begin to imagine how much busier it is when the weather is more clear. Crazy!
Okay, I think that's it to report about Ha Long Bay. I will add more if more comes to me!
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