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Halong Bay
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Halong bay is ment to be the most beautiful sight to see in Vietnam. I left with Mark and Jesus at 7am and said goodbye to the extremely helpful hotel staff (although i will be seein them in a couple of days a i am leaving the majority of my luggage there) and we boarded the minibus. The minibus drove around in circles for 1.5 hours waiting for more people and then eventually we picked up a big group of Thai tourists.
After a nice lunch we met our guide and boarded the boat. It was a pretty nice boat concidering we got the cheapest tickets we could so i was happy, we eventually got moving and went straight to a massive cave. It was very impressive and was illuminated by colourfull lights - it aparantly had only been discovered within the last 20 years but im not sure about that! After the cave we got talking to the people on the boat. There were 2 Aussie guys in their 30's a couple of Enhlish girls and a couple of Enhlish guys as well as all the Thais. They were a nice bunch but only doing the 2 day tour rather than the 3 day. The boat took us on a 6 hour journey to Catbar island where we were due to stay. We expected there to be nothing to do but it is a big city in the middle of an island in the middle of nowhere so there was plenty! We went out straight away to get a meal with the big Thai group and some really nice Vietnamese people who live in Germany on our table.
After dinner we aranged to meet the other people from our boat but they didnt show so we hit the town. We got talked into a bar by a really loud Vietnamese girl and in there we met Olga and another Russian girl. I met them before in Hue with Jesus. They are both Russian Israili's - seems like a bizar combination to me but apparently it is common! I had a really good night playing pool with Mark and table football and another game with Olga. In the end we decided to go to a club and when we arived there was literally just 10 people in there and we knew them all! Olga left a bit earlier which was a shame and then the three of us left.
The 2nd day in Halong bay was a nightmare! We were told we could have brekfast at anytime so after a seriously heavy night of drinking we rolled in at 11 but we missed the brekfast. We decided to grab some food at 11.30ish and then on the way back we asked if we were to have lunch at the same restaurant (it is all included in the package), it turned out we had to nhave lunch at 12 so we all had back to back meals! In fact Mark couldnt finish is 2nd so Jesus pretty much ate 3 - you would not believe the amount this man eats in one day - ive never seen anything like it.
After the food catastrophy we were told when the bloke came to pick us up for a 3 hour treck that we would be staying in the hotel again and not n the boat which we were prommised. After 1 hour of on and off arguing they agreed to put us on a boat but it ment we couldnt do the treck or the Kayaking. We were dissapointed but hungover so we went for it and it was worth it. All the shit that happened during the day was wiped away by the stunning landscapes of the bay. Amazing rock formations only lit by the moon. It was Marks birthday so i bought a bottle of rum and it was gone within a couple of hours. It was an amazing time and so this more than made up for the terrible organisation skills of the company that 'ran' the show.
The final day was just getting back to the mainland and then the 3 hour bus hourney to Hanoi. However, during this journey i decided i really want to go to china (Olga had put the idea in my head) but i really felt it was right for me rather than come beck through Laos which i have already seen. So when we arived i found there was an overnight train to Sapa (near the Chinese boarder and somewhere we all intended to go anyway) the only problem would be the visa as i only have 4 days (2 of them weekend days) to get it sorted - they also cant do it in Hanoi as quick as i need it. I didnt even try to peusuade Jesus and Mark to come, they just did so the three of us booked the tickets and went out for all you can eat pizza Mmmmm!
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