Ha Long Bay

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We've spent the last 3 days on a tour of the Ha Long Bay area including Cat Ba Island. This area is a UN World Heritage Site, its very beautiful and it has nearly 2,000 islands.

The first day we made the 4 hour journey to Ha Long Bay, we got on the boat by the early afternoon, first stop was a cool fishing village just floating on the sea in amongst a group of islands. We then went on to see quite a grand cave called the "Surprising Cave". In the late afternoon/early evening we did some sea kayaking around a small island and into a lagoon where we saw some white monkeys in the trees. In the evening Paul did some diving off the boat. We stayed up chatting to some really cool people on our boat: Nat, Jen, Noah, Jasin, Sabrina and Chris (Australia, Malaysia and Belgium respectively). Its quite obvious, but worth stating, that its great to be able to chat to so many different people from all over the world all on one little boat off the coast of Vietnam. And we now have a place to stay in Melbourne through Nat, and contacts in Malaysia through Noah and Jasin.

After sleeping on the boat, the next day we made our way to Cat Ba Island where we were taken to the national park and did a fairly short, but tough and steep trek for about 3 hours. The view from the summit was awesome! We then chilled in Cat Ba Island for the afternoon, and went for drinks with the people on our boat in the evening.

After catching up on sleep from the night before, we made the journey back to Hanoi for the afternoon. This evening we are beginning our open bus journey down south, first stop is Hue.

Thanks for all the comments and messages everyone has been sending, its good to know you're enjoying reading this, and we're really pleased to share the journey with you. Sorry we can't reply to all the comments and messages, but we'll try and send some emails out.

Miss you all! :-)

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Photos

Top of the hill
Please note: despite the use of the word 'hill' it was technically a jungle mountain! And it was bloody hard to climb!!!

Comments

[Cathy Eastwood]

Hello
Enjoying hearing about your experiences and seeing the fantastic photos. Glad you are having a good time. We are having terrible weather here so you are in the best place at the moment. Paul, we miss you in the office especially dealing with the many council tax calls. take care and continue enjoying your trip

[Gemma]

Amazing
Wow guys I feel very relaxed just looking at the photos. I only wish I was there. Love to you both. Gem xoxo

[Tim Hack]

Job Offer
Don't forget Paul, regardless of what Cathy says, there will be a higher paid job for you at Thanet council when you return!!

[Cashy]

Lady Boys
You guys are so good at this travel blog thing I think you should set up a company that brings the world to armchair travellers. Sounds really awesome and I'm loving hearing your news - now I'm getting the updates. Really looking forward to having you both to stay here in NZ and getting to know Paul. Keep up the good work and stay safe.