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Published: April 29th 2011
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Good Morning (Vietnam),
Well we arrived back from Halong Bay yesterday so I thought I should tell you all about our trip!
We made the long trip from Hoi An to Hanoi with little problems, I would really recommend the Sinh Tourist sleeper buses, they are by far the cheapest way to get around Vietnam and are pretty comfy!
We checked into a guesthouse/hotel which was touted to us at our bus stop-over in Hue (14 hours away from Hanoi, these touts will do anything for some business), and used our first day in Hanoi to book the Halong Bay trip and look around, we haven't liked Hanoi much, everything is just so difficult, its hard to get around, hard to find things, hard to buy relatively normal purchases which we have been able to find elsewhere etc.
We booked our Halong Bay trip based on the recommendation of Dave (who we met in Nha Trang) it was a 3 day, 2 night trip which had the first night staying on the boat and the second on the secluded "Monkey Island" which looked awesome and we thought it would be more special than spending a night in
a boring hotel on the nearby (much larger) Cat Ba island, which was the other trip option. Having booked the trip we spent the rest of the day walking around, trying to find toiletries etc. sun cream is so hard to get out here, unless you want factor 50 with added whitening agents, funny how the vietnamese want to be more white and we all want to be more brown! We then went out for dinner and it was our worst yet, its really not worth mentioning.
The next morning we got picked up and taken on the 4 hour bus journey to the Halong Bay harbour, we then boarded our boat and made our way to the "amazing cave", the scenery on route was fantastic, breathtaking is almost an understatement at this place! We went into the cave and it was pretty "amazing" much bigger than I had imagined. We then got to go kayaking in a small part of the bay which was pretty fun, and gave us a closer look at the rock formations. We were then back on the boat for some more spectacular scenery whilst the sun was going down. We stopped for the
night and were all jumping (and flipping) off the top of the boat, Heather didn't decide to get involved but she got some pretty sweet pictures so it was all good.
We then had dinner on the boat and got talking to the rest of the people on our trip, we were on a table with two dutch couples who were really nice (with excellent english) and we talked for hours about this and that. Our tour guide tried to get Karaoke going but luckily no one was interested (thank god). We woke up early the next morning hoping to catch sun rise, but it was cloudy so we retreated back to bed. After breakfast we were taken to Cat Ba island (the biggest in Halong Bay) where we did a cycle ride (Heathers first time on a bike in 10 years!!!) to a hospital which was used during the war. The hospital was set within caves and it was pretty cool to see. We then were taken to the infamous Monkey Island, it was pretty special! One resort with maybe 20 bungalows (we somehow got an upgrade to a deluxe room which was a bonus) and nothing else
on the island, we did some kayaking, played volleyball and beach football, and then went on a hike to the top of the island (the first time I was truely glad I had brought some decent shoes with me on the trip).
Its not called Monkey Island for nothing, whilst on the hike we came very up close and personal with around 10-15 monkeys which was really special, especially for Heather who is mad for the little critters. We even managed to feed nuts to them directly from our hands, definitely one of the highlights so far. We then made our way back to the resort and had dinner and more talking with other people on the trip.
We woke up to a large amount of rain, which wasnt too bad as it was the end of the trip anyway, the rest of the day was spent getting back to Hanoi, and meeting and getting to know more people which was cool, this guy has strongly recommended a hostel in Chiang Mai which we might check out, we havent stayed in any hostels yet so it will make a nice change hopefully.
So we are now back
in Hanoi (sigh) and we have little planned for today apart from hopefully watching the infamous royal wedding. I am really gutted that I cannot be in the UK today, my dad has organised a huge street party back at home and I wish I could be there but I suppose you cant be everywhere at once, and this country is pretty cool! Tomorrow we hope to go to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (its shut today) before a long night of travelling. We fly to Bangkok at 11pm, then from Bangkok to Chiang Mai at 6am, not much sleep on Saturday night then! We are really looking forward to Chiang Mai where we will be visiting an elephant sanctuary on Heathers birthday (check out Patara Elephant Farm on google to see what we will be up to). I also hope to do mountain biking and maybe do a cooking course of some sort.
Its bye for now and I will update you again when in Chiang Mai.
Cheers
James
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nature BOY
Nature BOY
just a quick question
Mate, really nice blog, enjoyed readin it. Just a quick question, do you reckon buying the haylong trip in advance will be cheaper than buying it from a travel agent while you are there? I'm planning to go there next month, your feedback is highly appreciated, thanks.