Halong Bay Trip

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So we got up ready for our bus to pick us up for the trip at 8am Sunday morning. Bus journey was ok, we had a tour guide who wasn’t that great. Spoke english, but was still pretty difficult to understand him, let alone all the other tourists where English wasn’t their first language! The bus ride to the boats took around 4 hours then we had to wait around quite a while for the boat. The boat (when it finally came) was lovely. Really nice restaurant area, a top deck area with sun lounges and the rooms were at the bottom which was nice too with a small bathroom in. We had lunch straight away, which was brilliant. Sat on a table for 4 with Rob and Ross and they just brough out lots of different dishes…all really nice, lots of seafood and fish  The alcohol on board was a little pricey compared to the city, a small can of beer was just over 1 pound, wine was 20 USD!! Then just to make sure you don’t bring your own beer there is a service charge for everything you bring on. Around 1 pound for each can, whether its beer or soft drink it all gets charge…was sooo ridiculus. We just thought if we were to buy any we would just drink it in our rooms and hang out there, which was a bit crappy as you wanted to sit up where there was a nice view, but we didn’t have our own beer anyway.

After lunch we had a nice ride through Halong Bay which is absolutely gorgeous. The weather was nice and warm and the scenery was amazing, just loads of those Kast mountains surrounded by the sea. After a couple of hours we stopped at one of the mountains and went into one of the caves which was pretty cool and had a good walk around there. After the cave we pulled the boat in an area where you could go Kayaking, it was a bit of a let down as we had to wait around an hour for the kayaks and paddles as there wasn't enough, and by this time the sun was setting so instead of having a couple of hours to kayak around the bay we had 30 minutes. But was still really good. The water felt soooo warm, was looking forward to having a swim in it sometime, maybe tomorrow. After the sun started to set we kayaked back and baorded the boat again with a gorgeous dinner waiting for us, food was amazing. During the afternoon was had seen some local women on small boats selling water and snacks and... some beer!! Much cheaper than on the boat, but if we didnt hide it we would have to pay the extra surcharge of 1pound, when considering the beer only cost 30p! Well we managed to buy some before any of the crew saw us, but then our guide saw the shop/boats people and came running saying excuse me sir madam only buy water and cookies, you cannot buy beer, just water and cookies!! We were soo annoyed, its like they are purposely trying to make you buy it in the restaurant where it costs quite a bit. Luckily he hadnt see us already bought a couple, so we just drank it in our room and played some cards, was stupid though as you felt like you 15 again!! It would have been nice to sit out on deck with a glass of wine, but not for their silly prices. The evening was pretty chilled, because no one wanted to pay the restaurant prices, or had sneaked beer in, everyone just sat in their rooms but us 4 sat up on the deck for a few hours just talking. Was nice and all the boats had stopped in the same bay area so you could see all the other boats all lit up. Had a reasonably early night as we had breakfast at 7am!! :s

Breakfast was great, bacon and egg butties 😊 Yumyum! We sailed over to Cat Ba Island, the only habited Island in Halong Bay where we then boarded the most crowded bus we have seen so far. Every seat was full, it was baking hot and to top it off they didnt seem to have any boot for the luggage, so luggage got piled in the isle between the seats, Was crazy, the journey was only about 15 minutes, then they had to take it all back off again to let us all out!! We arrived at the national park where we were told we would have an "easy trek"!! Hahah! turned out to be a huge hike uphill extremely steep!! We were just about ok, but there were a few older people with us, this one american man who was a pretty huge man too, he got left behind but did make it to the top about 30 minutes after us, such a legend. The start was the hardest as it was just straight up so many steps, then once we were in the trees it cooled down alot and was slightly flatter, a bit of a hard climb up some rocks at the end then we were finally on top of the peak with an amazing view over the Island...worht all the effort even if our legs were in extreme pain. I only had my flip flops on too, so that was a bit difficult when climbing.

After the "trek" we got taken by bus to our hotel they had booked us into. Was a nice basic 3* hotel, private bathrooms which had a bath in!!!! yes!!! Had a lunch, again very nice yummy food. lots of seafood, rice and vegetables. That afternoon as part of our tour we had some free time. So me, Ste,Rob and Ross headed to the beach as we were dying to get in the sea. A little dissapointed when we got to the beach as the water was freezing!!! Was so warm last night, dont know what happened. None of us were brave enough to try it as the sun was starting to go in and it wasn't as warm as the morning had been. Had a nice relazxing afternoon and bumped into some others who had been on our bus and boat so that was nice. Later in the evening we found one of Bia Hoi places like in Hanoi with the cheap beer, this one was 20p for a glass. We went with a couple of other people and a few wanted to chip in for a vodka, which cost nearly 3 pound for a big bottle so good price and finally I could drink something I enjoyed!! 😊 really nice little place, the woman who worked there was lovely, and her and husband joined us for a drink at the end of the night and her husband was giving us all his email...not entirely sure what for but we will email them the photo. Really nice evening sitting outside by the sea 😊

Another reasonably early night as again we had breakfast at 7am with the bus coming back to get us 8am! So many early mornings! Bus again was jam packed. We head down to the boats where we were waiting around for about an hour until our guide said I think the boat leave without us, we will get the public transport back, one of the big ugly hydrofoils. We were so annoyed as we were supposed to have another boat ride back through the bay as part of our tour on the same boats as the day before and we could have sat up on deck enjoying the sun on the sun lounges seeing some more of the bay but instead we got shoved on this big ugly metal hydrofoil which had a metal bar as a seat and whizzed back to the city! Then we arrived on the wrong side and to get taken by taxi to our bus back to Hanoi...just such a mess up. We got a final lunch in this crazy huge restaurant full of hundreds of other tourist, was crazy, but food was good and then we packed into a small minibus which took us back to the city.

Back in Hanoi we had to collect our open tour bus tickets for the rest of Vietnam and wait for us bus at 7pm to take us to our next destination, Ninh Binh. Bit of a mess up with the tickets, but sorted it in the end, and the bus was a bit crappy...was a sleeper bus, bit different from the Chinese ones, more like just seats with extended leg bits as a bed, quite comfy, but the bus crammed all our luggage in the isles again, then stopped and loaded loads of baggage in its boot from all these locals, a bit dodgy. Then all these vietnamese people came on the bus even though there weren't any more seats and layed down across all our bags that were in the isle...really strange! Anyway got to Ninh Binh fine and safe, ready for an early night.

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