Halong Bay & Cat Ba Island

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Guides and internet forums seem to offer a very mixed opinion of Halong Bay, with some reckoning its now too busy and packed with tourists. We thought we should see for ourselves, but our expectations had been lowered. They were then lowered further when our guide for the three-day trip mentioned to us that our boat had broken down that morning and had been replaced with a smaller one.

As it turned out, we shared a 14-berth boat with just one other couple. Our tour also took us a different route to every other boat (we went to visit a floating fishing village), so within an hour there were no crowds of tourist boats, only beautiful islands, and it was truly amazing. Dinner on the boat was another pleasantly surprising experience, even though it seemed like the chef had not been told he was catering for 4, and not 14.

So we started day two ready to lose a couple of pounds - Kayaking seemed to fit the bill. The scenery was amazing, and we even managed to stay relatively coordinated in our two person kayak - despite the occasional communication issue over which direction we were heading …

That afternoon we landed at Cat Ba Island and made our way to the Sunrise Resort -probably the plushest we will see on our entire trip!

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Comments

[Becca]

Wow these pictures are a-mazing! You must be having such a wonderful time, v v jealous! Lol xx