Ha Long Bay - 17/1-21/1 - 13

---

On our way north from Hué to Hanoi, we took a sleeper bus, and that was definitely an experience. The light was shot of at 7 pm and and at 7 am, the bus driver woke the entire bus by playing some "Umtji umtji-music". When we arrived in Hanoi we found a place, where they could fix Bos Visa, and after that we went directly to Ha Long City. We chose to go to Ha Long City, because we didn't want anymore tourist tours, since the memory of the trip to the Mekong Delta still was very fresh. So instead we stayed one night in Ha Long City, and that was more than enough. There was absolutely nothing to see or do in the citry, except for waiting for a boat out in the bay. We wanted to go to Cat Ba Island, but not the direct way, since we'd looked forward to seeing the bay and all of the limestones, so we chose to take a trip, where we should visit a cave and a fishing village on the way. After standing on the pier for a while, and moving back and forward according to what the guys at the harbour told us, it became clear, that our trip was a combination of several different trips. We were the only ones, who were "only" going to the island, the rest were on organized trips, where they went to stay on the island and on a boat, but in different orders, so we were all one funky mixture of people, but one thing all of them had in common, they were all going to do some kayaking at the fishing village. Bo and I didn't want to pay any extra in order to do the kayaking, so instead we spend the time drinking beer with some Aussie guys and ended up having a blast. The cave turned out tobe a "disco cave" with load of different coloured light. When we got to the island, we had an amusing bus ride from the harbour to the city, where we drank a lot of beer while bumping all the way in a way to crowded bus. When we arrived in Cat Ba city, we all decided to meet up for some beers later on. We all met up after dinner and did a minor pub crawl. Bo left at some point, but i carried on drinking until my alarm rang. Bo and I had a tour planned. We did a trekking trip to the national park. We trekked to a hill and a decrepit tower with a stunning view. Besides that we walked to a small cave with a lot of bats. Afterwards we chose to extend our trek, since we didn't really feel like we had trekked enough. So we trekked to the other side of the island, where we on the way passed a frog pond and a village. When we reached the habour on the other side of the islandd, we took a boat back to the city. It was a really nice trip, but the experience got a bit ruined since the guy screwed us with the price, and we easily could have done it witout a guide. He also managed to get us on a wrong boat, so that we got to the wrong habour and had to walk for quite a while. But that still didn't ruin the experience of that amazing place. We also did a boattrip around the bay, which was beautiful, eventhough it was foggy, and all of the limestone cliffs where white and grey and seemed transparent. It was not, what we expected, but I liked it none the less, and then we got to do some kayaking as well and saw yet another cave and a beautiful island, "Monkey island", where we trekked to the top, from where there was the most amazing view,. On our way to the top we saw some monkeys, and one of them picked up a beer can and started drinking. That was an excellent example of why you should never leave garbage in the nature.

---