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Published: October 4th 2009
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Halong Bay: You know when some one tells you something but its one of those 'you really had to be there' kinda stories? Well Halong Bay is sort of one of those. I don't think pictures or words could describe just how beautiful it was. When we were sailing through the bay on our boat we just laid on the deck enjoying the peaceful feeling, no one even spoke. The sea is flat calm, there is no noise, even the boats are quiet. Even though we ended up, once again, on a boat with only 2 other English speakers, the trip was worth it. Sunset in the bay was breathtaking, all the tour boats were anchored between a circle of peaks and we all settled into our cabins for the night. Day 1 of our tour brought us to some caves which were just as beautiful as the bay, they were massive and lit up with different colours to highlight all the detailed formations. After one night on the boat, our second night was spent on Cat Ba Island which is home to Cat Ba National Park. In Halong Bay food is easy as long as you like seafood, otherwise
it might be difficult, everything we were served was from the sea. On day 2 we headed to Monkey Island where we got the chance to swim with jellyfish (or not) and go kayaking. I guess you figured out the origin of the island's name by now, but just incase, the island is home to some monkeys! Tourists feed the monkeys and take photos etc. not so sure this is a good idea though as we witnessed a mother and her newborn monkey chase a man around the enclosure. Scary stuff. So the tour was almost over, our guide decided to surprise us on the last day by taking us for a climb up the mountain when we were wearing sandals and handbags! This was NOT a good idea, we all slipped in the mud created by the rain the night before and I ended up climbing 3/4 of the way up and all the way down barefoot. Ouch. Health and safety isn't really an issue on these tours! It was sad to leave Halong Bay, we had such a relaxing 3 days but there was no time to spare...Hanoi (again) and Bangkok (again) were waiting!
Hanoi Times Hanoi
The view from our window. We are so close to Halong Bay now, so excited. We have one night to spend in Hanoi, then we head to the bay for 2 nights and then back to Hanoi for our last night in Vietnam. Hanoi has such a huge population, we arrived in pouring rain yet the streets are still packed, its kinda crazy! Also caught a glimpse of a spit-roasted dog, I know its part of their culture to eat dog, but did they really have to roast it whole and display it in the window? With the tail and everything? It looked like it was about to pounce for a ball or something, poor little puppy. By now we were used to the bombarding as we step off the bus, 'stay in my hotel..no stay in mine, or mine!' Quite funny actually. We ended up in a place called the Elizabeth hotel which was really dirty and smoke filled, so we ventured out for the night. I love how shops in Asia never seem to close, or at least they don't close til early morning, even the markets, we found some that were opening way after shops in the western world would be closing.
I found a piece of heaven in the night market, there was a little stall selling slices of delicious cake for less than $1 mmm 😊 Also if you are an ice-cream lover like myself, there are lots of places to choose from near the lake, the perfect way to escape the scorching heat of Hanoi. The city at night is pretty cool actually, the lights and colours and smells are typical of Vietnam and locals sit and socialize for hours. We called it the city where no one sleeps. On our last night in Hanoi we decided to buy tickets to the Water Puppet show in the center of town, everyone said it was a must see. It was nothing how I expected, I don't know what I was imagining but it was still fascinating, who knew you could do so much with a puppet? Good bye Vietnam, we had an amazing time!
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