Little Hue & peaceful Ha Long Bay

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Hue and the amazing Ha Long Bay!!

We spent only about 24 hours in Hue (10th-11th) which is a small, quiet town near the river about 3.5 hours from Hoi An on the bus. We unfortunately didn't get to see much of Hue though as both Matt and I were quite sick which was really unfortunate because there were ancient tombs, temples and the Citadel to explore. Even though we weren't feeling the best we wanted to see a bit of Hue so we walked down to the river and went on a river cruise for about an hour. The river cruise wasn't the best thing we've ever done but it was good to get out and see more of the town.

We had to leave Hue yesterday (11th) at 2.30 to go to the train station for our 3.30pm train to Hanoi which didn't actually leave the station until 4.15 which was annoying because the stations are really not pleasant.. It was a long train ride to Hanoi as we didn't get off until 6.00am this morning! We just chilled and chatted all evening on the train to these two American girls Alison and Erin who are really nice and interesting to talk to, they're 21 and have also just finished uni ('college') in finance.. We got off the train and hopped straight onto a bus for a 3 hour trip to Ha Long Bay arriving at around 9.30am.

After breakfast we all went to the harbour where we boarded our private boat to cruise through the peaceful and beautiful islands that Ha Long Bay is known for.
As we started to depart the harbour we were already being served the start of our seafood lunch which was included in the tour. The food was amazing, we had prawns, crab cakes (which I don't usually eat but I am trying new things while traveling and it was actually really good!), noodles, squid stir fry, spring rolls, fish, morning glory, and a vegetable soup. There was so much food left over which I felt really bad about but they served us way too much!

It was so peaceful sitting on the top of the boat slowly cruising passed all of the small islands and caves, watching the massive birds soaring and the colourful butterflies floating by. The water was very green and quite murky and polluted so we weren't allowed to swim unfortunately as it was another scorching day!

There are between 1900 and 2100 limestone islands in a 1553 sq/km area, which all arose from the movement of tectonic plates and complex geological processes taking over 500 million years.

We cruised for about 3 hours before we reached a bay filled with other cruise boats anchored up for tourists to explore the big cave. We powered up these steep old stairs and through this small hole which is the entrance to an absolutely massive cave! The caves are created from water seeping into cracks and slowly eroding the limestone, which happens between 11,000 and 700,000 years. The cave was all lit up and had some man made features such as small waterfalls, but the most fascinating part is the top of the cave which has tree roots hanging down and rocks in the shape of long water drips. The cave was crowded with tourists which made it quite hot in the cave, but the bay looked really pretty with all the colourful boats lined up together. After exploring the cave we slowly made our way back to the harbour on our boat and back to the hotel where we have just been chilling for a couple of hours as Matt has a bad head cold and there isn't a lot to see in Ha Long bay apart from the thousands of islands!

Tomorrow we head back to Hanoi to spend our last two days with the tour. Today has been so beautiful and so much fun hanging out with everyone. I'm excited for Hanoi and also to go to Japan on Tuesday!

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