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Published: November 11th 2015
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A super long and incredibly needed sleep later (fell asleep at 8:30 pm), I boarded a bus which picked up Mom and Dad en route and we drove out east to the coast.
Ha Long City is right at the mouth of the Red River and is also home to some incredibly beautiful scenery. The bay is full of towering limestone karst islands (1,969 of them to be exact!) which is almost too awesome for words - so I've added lots of pictures to this post!
We boarded a big river boat style ship that held about 30 people. It was full but didn't feel crowded at all. We definitely hit the jackpot with this boat as the stateroom we had was so beautiful, it had a balcony and a shower with multiple shower head/jet/spray options. Swank-o-rama.
We had a great lunch then set off on a smaller tender sized boat to explore an incredible cave (huge!) that easily took us 45 minutes to walk through (at a Gerry Lush pace too!). We then did a little kayaking and some swimming (Mom climbed to the top of the island while Dad and I swam). Then we headed back
to the big boat for an incredible dinner and some hang out time on the top deck in the warm sea breeze before we went to bed.
Mom was up early to take advantage of the free Tai Chi class and Dad and I just went for Vietnamese coffee and breakfast (Mom later joined us). We loaded back onto the smaller boat and visited a pearl farm (bought myself a golden pearl ring, woop!), then went for a long 2-hour kayak through the islands. We had to pass through some caves to get to some secluded bays that you can only reach by small boats like kayaks which was really special. We also saw some endangered monkeys there that put on a great show for us.
Back on the boat we spent some time jumping off the top deck of the boat (footage of me smashing my back flat on the water doing something dumb will not be included in this posting) and getting a wicked bad sunburn (just me). We had a barbecue lunch on the boat before seeing another cave - this one much sketchier but way more natural and requiring some crawling and flashlights. It
was something straight out of a horror movie plot if you ask me.
Another lovely dinner and quiet evening on the boat allowed me a third night of 9 hours of sleep. I may finally have recovered from the music festival now.
Today we headed back to port and bussed back to Hanoi. Mom and Dad had booked a night at a super fancy hotel so I bunked in with them (way to crash the romance party Jode!). Seriously this place has a toilet with settings. Settings! Front wash, back wash, air dry, heated seat.... The works.
I spent the evening having one last lovely dinner with Mom and Dad before we split ways on our travels tomorrow - they are off to further explore Vietnam and then join a cruise, and me to fly to Jakarta, Indonesia where hopefully my next post is from (assuming the safety records of Indonesian airlines are not based on the number of plane crash articles people sent me before I left).
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Georgina
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You guys are seeing some awesome sights! Have fun in Indonesia...stay safe. Xoxo