Heritage Halong Hotel Halong Bay

... we headed to Cat Ba Island where we stayed in some mediocre hotel and had some Bia Hoi beers with a few tour members. We met a lot of travellers, some who have beer travelling for 20 months!<br>It's too bad the weather was not nicer, it was pretty freaking cold and overcast day one, but the sun came out on the way back this morning. Lots of great photos, although they never catch the sheer beauty of ...

... on the floor right on the beach, they were lovely! The day was spent either playing beach vollyball, taking a dip or just basically lounging about. The place was so perfect that we decided to spend a second night there as soon as we landed.<br><br>That evening we were cooked a delicious BBQ and it also happened to be Pien's (our Dutch friend who had also decided to spend a second night with us on the island) birthday and the tour guides (all from the UK) went all ...

... to be able to work today. And I need to stay in the village and help the teachers and the children! Mr. Ninh is leaving too. The question they ask is how will I conmmunicate. I assure them that my body language skills are fine; not to worry.<br><br>The Classroom and the Children: 12 children had been selected for the morning session. We planned to use 6 XOs with 2 children per XO. I began by learning the names of all of the children. The Vietnamese names ...

... br><br>Then I went off to explore Hong Gai for the afternoon. I needed to find some power strips to buy, along with a few other things. In the Hong Gai market I met a lovely couple, Peter and Ty from Hong Gai and Vancouver, BC. Because Peter spoke English to me, I asked him if he happened to know anyone in town who has knowledge about solar power. He told me that he was probably the only person in this city of about 1,000,000 people that knows ...

... John &amp; July took us to a restaurant they had found previously called 'Little Hanoi' - it turned out to be the best food that we had in the whole of Vietnam; tasty, reasonably priced and not too greasy. A further day of washing &amp; travel admin and we were set to leave Vietnam after 5 action packed weeks. We have both really enjoyed it here, it is safe, warm and cheap. The food has mostly been fantastic; fried rice and fried noodles being our favourite dishes. Out of ...

... 02 and lunch was prepared. We were expecting a scrumptious seafood lunch, well lets just say they class sea food as a tiny plate of squid to share between 5 people. We also had other<br>food; rice, tofu, cabbage, egg, and tiny spring rolls. little did we know this was our meal for the next three days.<br><br>There were about 20 tourists on the boat who had all paid different prices for different types of tour. <br><br>We got to the 'secret cave' where we were quickly guided around ...

... t tell him that we were busy with "Fragrant Knotweed &amp; Deep Penis"..But Vietnamese raise their voices often, but means no harm. So we hopped on the bus, picked up 8 others and we drove to Halong Bay. Fung was a funny man after all, he made jokes about Hanoi &amp; Vietnam, but we all sort of laughed about him telling the joke, than the joke itself. But as said, a good guy and maybe his first " Tour of Duty to Halong Bay "<br><br>Halong Bay, for those of you who don´t know ...

... stunning. The water is an emerald green &amp; the karst cliffs are steep &amp; vertical rising hundreds of feet &amp; covered in lush jungle.<br><br>Oh yeah, nearly forgot the great welcome we got as we were seated to start our lunch &#8211; the guide told us that at 7.30pm last night a 3 level boat was blown over in a strong wind squall &amp; 4 people drowned!!! We all ...

... by dramatic lighting, with stalagmites and stalactites hanging everywhere in the once underground cavern. After walking around the cave we then drop anchor in a remote part of the bay where we have a chance to swim and kayak for a while. Kayaking turned out to be the best way to see the bay, giving a sense of scale and the chance to go through small caves to 'hidden' lagoons. Once we'd had our fill of swimming (and cannonballing of the top of the boat, obviously) and kayaking we had ...

... phenomena, it's formed by thousands of lime stone karsts, it's best to let the pictures do the talking for how beautiful the place is. Our Junk weaved around through the islets all afternoon whilst we sat up on deck gawping and drinking our cold beers. We stopped to look in at a cave before we went sea kayaking. Ritchie and Raj in one kayak proved a somewhat hapless ...