Hey,
So on Friday we got up bright and early and jumped on a minibus to Halong Bay. We arrived at 12 and eventually got on our boat for a Vietnamese lunch. Halong harbour was like tourist central, teeming with tourists waiting for boats and boats waiting for tourists. On our boat was a shy French guy, an American doctor and two giggly Vietnamese ladies from Ho Chi Minh City. We soon realised there was more crew than the six of us! We cruised out during lunch and admired the limestone islands.
Our first stop was Sung Sot Cave which had three vast chambers. Our guide pointed out vague shapes in the rock formations such as a horse (which was a lump of rock), a happy Buddha, a baby dragon, a turtle. The pink-lit rock which particularly caught our eye our guide adamantly referred to as a 'pointing finger' but our whole group decided it was much more like a rock phallus.
We then cruised over to Ti Top Island and climbed the billion and one steps to the pagoda at the top. The panorama view was worth the climb, especially as the sun was beginning to set.
We hobbled back down and went for a paddle (Luke still can't get his finger wet) before jumping back onto the boat as it started to rain.
We showered before tea under what can only be described as a weak trickle, it took Becky 10minutes to get her hair wet. Luke showered afterwards and the trickle became worse so he resorted to crouching under the tap and using that trickle instead.
Tea was nice but there wasn't enough food really (Becky spent our three days saying 'I'm hungry' every 10minutes, Luke thinks she's got a tapeworm). Afterwords we were treated to blaring Vietnamese karaoke for the staff to loudly sing along to while we played cards and chatted. The Vietnamese ladies taught us a very easy card game before going to join in with the karaoke fun.
Up early again next day to transfer onto another boat as ours was taking Corey and the Vietnamese girls back. As our new boat started to move away we realised our guide (who stayed on the other boat) still had our passports so we yelled and hollered and had to go back. That's the first and last time our passports leave our care. We met the other group on the new boat and had to make more new friends. We changed boats again onto a smaller boat so we could go to the kayaking place and then we kayaked. It was quite a long kayak, we raced with the others and landed on one of the islands to have a poke around. Then we kayaked back and saw the cuttlefish, jawfish and crabs the people who rented us the kayaks had caught.
Had a delicious lunch while chatting to a new French girl and our original French guy. Becky's French sucks, so does Luke's (cos Becky taught him and cos he's smelly).
Cruised on over to Cat Ba Island for a gander. We landed on a small pier in the middle of nowhere on Cat Ba Island. Luke cycled to the tiddly village and Becky hired a nice motorbike man cos she's a fraidy-cat. Luke really enjoyed the cycling, Becky really enjoyed her motorbike ride.
We had our 'trek', a 10minute walk, to a cave the villagers had used during the Vietnamese War to hide from the Americans. Our guide said they could fit upto 100-1000 (we both think he said different things and can't actually remember how many) people inside. It was quite cool and Luke got a good collection of mozzy bites, woo he loves those mozzy bites baby.
We 'trekked' back for 10minutes and came across a small herd of pygmy goats which Becky ooohed and aaahed over. We took our respective transport back to the small pier and hopped back aboard the boat. We sailed around to the main town on Cat Ba and checked in to our hotels. Our guide fetched us for a wander to the beach where we sat and had ice creams while the others swam and played volleyball....... that's right..... we were impaired by Luke's finger and Becky's laziness.
Back to the hoteeeyl for tea with our French friend before meeting the German couple for happy hour drinks after happy hour (we have connections!). Very sleepy we tumbled into bed and slept long sleeps..until we had to get up early for brekkie and check-out.
Spent the whole day getting back, reading and eating cookies and lunch and mnms. Once back in Hanoi we met our French guy and took him for tea in the restaurant we like,it was nice. Then we went to HSBC Bank to escape the charge we seem to have been charged at ATMs in Hanoi and the ******** charged us anyway.
It is now the day after the day before and this evening will be the evening after the evening before, that is when we'll be bus-ing it to Hue overnight. By the way Luke's better now.
TO BE CONTINUED in Hue xxxxxx
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