Halong Bay (visit one)
Trip Start
Aug 28, 2008
1
21
29
Trip End
Nov 11, 2008
Halong Bay,
Vietnam
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
After a four our drive to Halong Bay from Hanoi we embarked a wooden boat with a couple of decks. The sea is really calm here but it is so smoggy, like Hanoi, that you cannot see too far out into the ocean. As we were enjoying a beautiful sea food lunch, along the horizon emerged hundreds of rocky islands. In total there are nearly 2000 limestone karsks in halong bay and the boat took us near hundreds of these rocks before we arrived in a bay. Here we jumped off the boat and took a walk up some steep steps to a huge cave.
At the end of the afternoon, and after more cruising through the bay, we arrived at Cat Ba island which is the largest island in the bay. Here we were taken to a small beach resort. Unfortnately there was no English channels on the television (something that has not happened before) so I spent a couple of hours reading because there isn't much to do in the town. The day with a dinner in a restaurant on the sea front.
09/10
In the morning I took a walk to the beach not far away from the hotel. After brunch on the beach I met up with Sam and Jane and we went for a swim in the sea. The sea is so calm here and the water is really warm that it makes it perfect for swimming!
After the beach the group joined up together and caught a hydrofoil back to the mainland and returned to Hanoi. Tonight was the last official group dinner. the food at the restaurant was nice but our tour guide totally messed up calculating each persons individual bill so it eventually took about 30 minutes to figure everything out which is ridiculous for seven people. Then after we all paid the waiter, probably trying to take advantage of the confusion, said that we still owed money when after further checking we realised that we had paid more than was required. Im sure that the smug little waiter had pocketed some of the money because everyone had definitely paid the right amount, all of the group refused to pay any extra but annoyingly the tour guide paid the difference.
Overall this tour hasn't been as good as the others, partly because I havent enjoyed Vietnam as much as the other countries I have visited. The people just arent as nice (I just dont think many of them like westerners) and I feel like they are trying to rip me off alot more than in the other countries (for a communist country they have very capitalist values) but also the tour guide was terrible compared to the others.
