Ha Long to Ha Long Bay?

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Day 3 of the tour and we had an early breakfast at the Blue Dragon Children's charity. They help get kids of the streets of Vietnam and offer them schooling etc. It was really nice to meet the children and we were taught to play drums by one of the kids. We then set off on a 4 hour bus drive to Halong Bay. The drive was very scenic but very bumpy - nearly bounced off my seat a few times! At Halong Bay we got on to a sailing junk and that was our home for the rest of the day and night. It is a sight with all these junks sailing in and out of the bay. We had a delicious seafood lunch and then sailed for an hour our so through beautiful limestone karsts - very lovley. We stopped to check out a cave. which was massive. We had a 1/2 slot in which to explore the cave and as we were walking down we thought we had run out of time and had to rush - clambering over several other junks to get to ours! We went for a swim in the water - not sure how clean it was but it was very refreshing after the heat of Hanoi and climbing around the cave. That evening the group bonded over several drinks (that we later learned were really rather expensive!!) and karaoke! Good night was had by all.

Next morning we sailed back to the docks - as did all the other boats who had done the day trip and there was a massive traffic jam!! They literally make room for the junk by pushing all the other vessels out of the way and just keep nudging and nudging till they are at the pier. We were all stood on deck amazed!!

Another 4 hour drive back to Hanoi and on the way we stopped at a rice paddy and our toout leader took us all down to the paddy to explain how they grow rice - even clambering into the paddy himself. After lunch and a\some down time we got ready to set off on an overnight train journey to Hue. The trains are ok - 4 to a cabin so not too cramped and I managed to get some sleep. More from Hue in the next entry.

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