Halong Bay

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Hi All

I'm just back from a 2 day cruise in Halong Bay with my tour group. It was really cool that we had a boat to ourselves and went kayaking round the large limestone rock formations (one of the James Bond movies was filmed here!) We also visited the caves that have been carved out in some of the rocks and they were pretty funny - trying to spot faces etc in the stone.

The food on the cruise was fantastic and we had so much fresh seafood. Our first task was to open a full crab which was a bit disgusting when its staring at you but was really delicious. It wasn't that sunny but still really warm so it was lovely just to chill out on the deck and look at the scenery.

We were pretty impressed with the level of accommodation for the boat cabins considering our recent stays in hilltribe huts. It all seemed like bliss until we heard scuttling and saw a RAT!!!! Louise and i were sharing a room and both jumped up on our beds and started screaming. She thinks it was like something from a horror film but if anyone else had seen it they would have thought it was a comedy - 2 girls screaming on top of their beds. We were terrified to get down but eventually worked up the courage and ran out of the room and up to the top deck to sleep on the sun loungers with our sheets. It actually was pretty comfy and a little bit cooler and very nice view to wake up to in the morning.

Unfortunately the mosquitoes are still loving my blood and one of my mozzie bites got infected and turned into a lovely puss-filled boil thing!! I popped it but am slightly worried about it as Louise has had some really bad ones that seem to have got infected. I've just been to the doctors with her and she's been kept in on an intravenous drip for a couple of hours. hopefully she will be fine for tomorrow as we're leaving to get the overnight train to Hue as the next part of our journey. (Mum/Gran - don't worry!!)

4 new people joining the tour tonight so that's pretty exciting aswell. Hope everyone is well and i'll write again from Hue (hopefully will remember a picture update!)

jill
x

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