Day 40 - To Halong Bay we go

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Up bright and early for breakfast and check out 8am pick up to go to Halong Bay.

So once we are picked up we have a 2hours bus ride to Halong City where we pick up our boat for the 3 day 2 night trip around Halong Bay. When we get on the bus we are introduced to our tour guide Tony.

Tony is a little bit crazy! He always refers to himself as Tony (you have a question, you ask Tony!) and repeats himself at least twice, every word in the same sentence. He was very enthusiastic.

On the way to Halong Bay we stopped at rest stop where Debbie got a really nice wooden bracelet for like 20c and I bought a book that was "fake"! The whole thing was photocopied but it was still perfect.

When we got to Halong City we were brought to the marina which was hectic there were loads of tours and hundreds of boats we had to wait for a tender to come and take us to our boat which was way out in the bay. When we got to the boat we were given a cold towel and ice tea and shown to the dining room. Then Tony gave a long speech which took about three times longer than it should because he repeated himself so much!

Anyway long story short we had 15 mins to check into our rooms, then be back for lunch, then we were going to see a cave on once of the limestone karsts and then kayaking in the bay.

When we went to our rooms we had a quick look round and found a hammer in the press beside our bed which we thought was strange but overall the room was fine. Then Tony came to make sure we were ok and tell us the "we got the best room" and "only we got fruit and water", "don't tell anyone else, its a secret Tony look after you!" we were like yeah right who is looking for tips!!!!

Anyway went for lunch, we were assigned seats we ended up with a Vietnamese couple who didn't speak English (or chose not to), fun times! There was another Vietnamese couple in the group but for some reason they didn't speak to each other at all, not one word! We found that very odd! Anyway lunch was good there was so much food and I could eat most of it so I was happy, and it turns out Debbie likes tofu, so she was happy too!

After lunch we went to the cave, it was really impressive think Aillwee caves but warmer. Then to the kayaks, Grainne was really nervous getting in, but once we were in and away she loved it. Debbie was in a kayak with Justin from Germany. We were all free to roam about as we wanted we were just told to be back in 45 mins and watch out for the big boats!

It was really nice to paddle around the bay, when we paddled up to the big limestone karsts and just where the rock hits the water there are loads of barnacles and if you splash water on them all these purple crabs start milling about it was deadly. I also found a dead fishy in the water and brought him with me!

Then back to the boat we had some free time before dinner. We could jump off the side of the boat and go swimming. I did so with the aid of ring buoy. The water was so nice and warm, but them one of the girls got stung by a jelly fish so that was our cue to get out of the water. We had showers and then went for dinner.

Dinner was good, after we went up to the top deck and had a cocktail and just chatted and played the celebrity name game 1st letter of surname one. The three of us ended up staying up on deck until 1am playing this watching the sky and to boat moved around its anchor.

When we got into the room we realised what the hammer in the press was for.....cockroaches! We seen about 7 and killed at least 5 needless to say we did not sleep we kept the light on and kept playing the name game until we had to get up for breakfast 😞

Its going to be a long, tiring day....

Rx

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