Ha long Bay day 1

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We were told to be at the travel agents for an 8am pick up, but as predicted we didn't get picked up until about 8.30am. Our travel agent arrived at 8am to open up so we sat in her office chatting until our bus arrived.



The journey to Halong would take about 3 hours 30 minutes with a 20 minute stop along the way. The mini bus was full but there was a mixture of excursion types - one day, two day one night and three day two nights, we were the latter.,



The 20 minute break was at a store which sold all sorts of tourist stuff, from paintings to ceramics, clothes etc and also had a café.it was the major tourist stop along the way as the placeless full of westerns on their way Halong.



We arrived around midday and boarded our boat via a small boat which ferried us to our big boat. We had a group of 10, two couples from Italy and x Spain, a single guy from Australia and one from France. Two girls from Germany a an English guy and his girl friend from Belarus who both live in Dubai, so a nice group.



We did the usual introductions and had lunch as the boat sailed towards to bay and the caves. The food on the boat was lovely,pretty much Vietnamese except for the chips at dinner lol, but we had to pay for the drinks which were. Bit pricy compared to the mainland.



We disembarked via the small boat to caves were very busy with tourists all following the same travel patterns. We did note the number boats in the bay and the number of tourists and it's a shame in many ways that it has become so popular.



We visited the caves and then boarded the boat to the beach where we spent an hour or so. Lindsay and I had a swim but the water was dirty with bits of polystyrene, leaves, dead bugs and other bits and bobs floating in top. Not totally polluted but not trash free either.



After the beach we headed back to the boat and had an opportunity to go kayaking but Lindsay and I couldn't be bothered as we hadn't had much sleep so we just chilled on deck with some of the others who had decided not to go.



Later we had a go at making spring rolls ready for dinner. We are and then had the opportunity tondo some squid fishing and or karaoke. I opted to do some squid fishing and had a nice chat with Matt the guy from Oz. We could hear the songs being killed and had a little chuckle. After about half an hour of no luck we gave up. The crew member with us had caught 2 squid so we decided we would leave him to it.



Lindsay and I headed off to bed about 9.30am as we were shattered and fell asleep to the sounds of the guys bonding over beer and Karaoke lol.



Xxxx

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