Halong Bay - 3 Day tour
Trip Start
Nov 01, 2007
1
8
81
Trip End
Jun 28, 2008
Halong Bay,
Vietnam
Friday, November 16, 2007
We took a three day (two nights) tour to Halong Bay for Malcolm's birthday. Left Hanoi on Tuesday morning, arrived at Halong City at about noon. Crawled across a couple of boats to get to ours, (crazy parking in the marina.....pics to follow) and off we set. Halong Bay is amazing, even if the weather wasn't perfect the first day. We went to the "Amazing" Cave (Sun Sot) in the afternoon, had some time to swim at a small beach before sunset, and then moored amongst the karsts that night. One of the ladies in our group introduced us to possibly the BEST card game ever that night....."Spoons". Stayed up late playing Spoons and having a good laugh.
Woke up early on Wednesday morning, and Malcolm started off his birthday by jumping off the top deck of the boat for a swim. I stayed nice and dry and took pics. Went for a 5km bike ride on Cat Ba Island and then a trek to the summit of Navy Peak Or at least that's what it said in our brochure. It was about a 5km bike ride, but the trek appeared to be merely an opportunity to stop and purchase drinks from a small cafe. Back to the boat, and a bit more swimming - this time I did get in the water, but only for a few minutes. The water in Halong Bay is very warm but unbelieveably salty! After lunch, we went kayaking for a couple of hours, which was really wonderful.
We stayed that night in a nice hotel in Cat Ba town, on Cat Ba island. With a lot of help from the tour guide, I did manage to arrange a cake for dinner that night for Malcolm's birthday. It was incredibly good - they made it fresh for us.
Last day, had to get up really early, mostly just to get back to Halong City and then travel Hanoi by 5pm.
Off to Sapa tomorrow night, we will write more then.
Love,
Karyn & Malcolm
