Plaza Halong Bay

By far the easiest way to see the totally beautiful Ha Long Bay is by package tour. Unfortunately. We ended up getting a pretty good deal, but certainly played like a bunch of fiddles by our "tour company/guide(s)", if they can even be termed such! There is basically a lot fo waiting around not knowing what is going on/late buses/ turning around because they forgot people and all that jazz...<br>That ...

... joke! Again we didn't have a camera at this point as we didn't want it getting wet - so you'll just have to use your imaginations! <br><br>We spent that night on the boat playing drinking games and having a good dance up on top deck (I provided the music via a ipod set), as spirits were high there were a lot of nudies jumping off the top of the boat.......of course we had to join in! Carolyn got into the dancing a little too much and started to boogie on a chair ...

... tonight joined by a Czech couple (Kate &amp; Thomas) that had been on our boat trip.<br>Our last few days in Vietnam we spent back in Hanoi as we needed to do some travel admin before leaving the country. John and July joined us on the journey back and recommended a nice cheap hotel to stay in that they had used before. Between the bus station and this hotel we all caught a taxi together. On the drive the cabbie went ridiculously slow and kept looking at John in the front ...

... cost us $15 each for one way. A tour would only cost us $40 for three days and two night including 2 breakfast, 2 dinner and 3 lunch. <br><br>Now we had decided how we were going to get to Ha Long bay, now we were to decide what tour<br>company we will book it through. There are hundreds of tour companies offering very similar packages at different price. In the end we went through our hotel as we had enough of looking at this point. The tour company was called, 'discovery' and ...

... there is 13 people on board from Belgium, Germany,England &amp; Vietnam.<br> <br><br> <br> On boarding we were given a cold washer to clean up &amp; seated at big cant tables &amp; cushioned chairs for a yummy lunch of fish, sir fry pork, tofu, veggies, spring rolls &amp; watermelon.<br> <br><br>Meals are included in the price of $70 US each, but not our drinks. Our cabin ...

It takes us a 4 hour bus journey to get from Hanoi to Ha long City, where our boat leaves the harbor for the bay itself. The harbor itself is rammed full of tourist boats, no surprise really as everyone who comes to Vietnam comes here. We jump on our boat- along with 6 other 'shipmates' - and are served lunch as we leave the bay. We're then showed our cabins (on the bottom floor of our three floor boat) which turn out to be really nice - small but all wood and pretty cosy (and all that ...

<br>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 ...