Blogs from Northeast, Vietnam, Asia - page 79

Thanks everyone for your messages, its great to hear from you all and apologies to the Vietnamese Family that Simon rang instead of Katie, something to do with International Dialing Codes!!!! The funny thing was that Simon thought that Katie was messing around and putting on a Vietnamese accent He He He. How do we get time to do the blog? We don't sleep!!! Christmas Eve here was amazing. We had been recommended a restaurant called Hanoi Garden and off we went on a mission to find it.....hhhhmmm a mission it was, we went out without the map and ended up walking in circles for over an hour before we finally found it! It was well worth the marathon walk as the food was amazing. We came out full to the brim and more than a ... read more

Hanoi is the starting point where we get picked up for our tours in Ha Long Bay. It's a crazy city and you can read more about it in my Hanoi blog that I'll publish soon. The city itself is full of all kinds of travel agencies who are looking to send tourists to either Ha Long Bay or Sa Pa. Soem agencies are more legit than others. There seems to be no copyright laws here in Hanoi so when an agency gets a good reputation, a whole bunch of other fly by night agencies will open up under the same name. A 3 day boat tour of Ha long Bay can cost anywhere from as little as $30 to well over $300. Most being sold from $30 to $85. You really get what you pay ... read more

After two days of eating and shopping my way through Hanoi, I set off for my highly anticipated tour of Halong Bay, the natural wonder located about three hours drive from the city. Halong Bay is a collection of over three thousand islands rising from warm emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. The area has twice been designated as a Unesco World Heritage Site, once for its status as a natural wonder and once for its geological significance. On the drive to our port of call in Halong City, I got acquainted with my small and friendly group of fellow travelers, Sean & Brenden of Capetown, Sarah of England, Lauren, Warrick, Danny and Kylie of Australia, and Janet hailing from Canada. Leading the way was our friendly local tour guide named Bihn. During his introduction, ... read more

Our next destination in Vietnam was the beautiful Halong Bay. After the manic Hannoi it was nice to get out of the city and we booked a trip to Halong Bay and stayed on Cat Ba island for 2 nights. We cruised around the bay and visited some caves but the weather was a real shocker here though as it was cold and wet, funny that, being their wet season! Next stop was Ninh Binh which I have no hesitation in saying was the most miserable / ugly place I've ever seen (sorry to any Ninh Binhian readers!!!). The town is used mainly as a base for tours to Tam Cok, and there really is very little to do here, including eating! There are no restaurants or cafes here at all, however should you need a ... read more

What a magical three days! Halong Bay is all that it was made out to be - amazing scenery, awesome seafood and a damn good time! We left Hanoi on Sunday morning and travelled on the bus to Halong City - a group of 16 of us on a bus with very little suspension - not the most comfortable ride! After 3 hours we arrived at Halong City where we had a big seafood lunch before boarding the boat - a three level boat with twin cabins down the bottom, tables/seating in the middle, and then an open deck with deck chairs on top! The first night was to be spent on the boat, anchored in a calm cove somewhere in the middle of the bay. We had a couple of stops in the afternoon - ... read more