Halong Dream Hotel Halong Bay

Ha Long Bay has a 120 kilometre long coastline and is approximately 1,553 square kilometres in size with about 2000 islets. The area designated by UNESCO as the World Natural Heritage Site includes 434 kmē with 775 islets, of which the core zone is delimited by 69 points: Đầu Gỗ island on the west ...

... houses floating on blue barrels. We stopped at Monkey Island. And like the game, there wasn't a single monkey to be seen. So we lay in the sun and splashed aroung a bit, listening to the whinges of the others about the lack of monkeys.
Here are some of the photos of our trip! Many more to come tomorrow!
Love you all,
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Lucy and Adele

... the 3 young aussies and another aussie couple were staying on the island so we caught a different boat than the others. We cruised through lanha bay to the ocean beach resort and experienced a beautiful sunset on our way! we arrived at the resort to see the cosy bamboo beach huts and knew we had made the right choice! we had a bbq dinner by the beach and sat around chatting with our tour buddies. it really was a great night and the food was so tasty. we had about 7 courses each one ...

... hotspot with hotels and bars all the way down the main 'strip'. While the view out the bay was very nice, the whole 'strip' felt a bit soulless. We stayed one night on the island, which was enough - however, our hotel was very nice.

On the last day we rounded up our Ha Long bay experience by heading back to Ha Long city, stopping for a bout of swimming on the way. It's another 4 hours, including a quick stop off where our driver takes his groceries home, to get back to the capital.

The streets of Hanoi are chock-full of tour agents, we had read that quality and price varied wildly and it was difficult to know who to trust. Another Vietnamese curiosity that didn't help us is that whenever a hotel/restaurant/tour agent becomes successful 3 or 4 others with identical names will spring up, making it very difficult to work out which is the genuine ...

... to the gills with snacks and drinks seemed to magically materialize whenever our junk stopped. It didn't seem to matter that we were in what felt like the middle of a watery nowhere, these women hung out in their bobbing skiffs trying to catch our eyes, constantly calling out, "You buy something!" Another thing to note: These women were beyond fully clothed; not just the usual conical hats and long pants/shirts/shoes, but socks and gloves and ...

... deck (massive mistake as I was to find out later). We stopped once at a dock, and picked up about 50 japenese tourists who piled into the boat with the expression of confused newborns. We sympathised with this, as nobody had a clue what was going on or where we were going. What we did know was that we wanted to get off the boat, get home and complain to our travel agents sharpish! We got to the dock and were told to sit like good little children and wait for our bus to ...

... argued that the batteries had gone, but I think otherwise...). It was a fun night although the Canadians chose some terrible songs (yes, they actually chose Celine Dion, my heart will go on).

We got up at 5.30am (which is WAY too early for us backpacker types) to see the sunset only to find we'd missed it (we're good at that - see our blog about the sunset in Shanghai!). Still, it was beautiful light and we got some ...

... organization by the tour company really pushed Luc's patience over he edge...so you can imagine the mood. It was a really difficult hike, straight up and across sharp rocks.... just crazy slippery... and did I mention that it was raining... heavily? I love my havaianas but they were really never intended for hiking. The view from the top was at least breathtaking... well... we were out of breath and the view was really nice. We started heading down which I think was actually more ...

... with the whole bay in pitch blackness except for the lights on the other junks around us, and the outlines of the islands. It was really cool, even if the boat didn't stay still long enough for me to get a good photo!

We slept ok despite the grim bed, and drifted off to the sounds of water lapping against the boat outside our window, which ...