Tales of Halong Bay and Goodbye Vietnam

Erin and I both had a lovely time in Halong Bay as you've probably gathered from the photos that we've uploaded.

We started out with a 3 hour bus journey from Hanoi to get to Halong city. The bus ride was pretty good but as we've mentioned before the roads over here are pretty bad and road travel is slow going.... We arrived into Halong city around midday and boarded a little boat to get taken to our junk.

After about 10 minutes we boarded our larger boat, the "Vega". The boat was lovely with 3 stories, a bar, a dining room (with karoke...) and a upper deck for lounging and sun bathing. Erin and I thought we would splurge a bit and got the deluxe room with a balcony and all the bells and whistles (including love heart twisted towels)

We cruised out to the islands while sitting down to a sumptuous lunch consisting of fish, pork, spring rolls, wok fried greens, rice, corn, and chips. It wasn't long till we caught site of the dreamy rock formations typical of the Halong Bay area.

The first destination we were bound for was "Surprise Cave", which we arrived to after approximately 2 hours of cruising. The caves were fantastic and consisted of 3 large chambers which had formed in the limestone karsts. There were many strange shapes which have formed over the years of calcium deposits, some which our guide described in detail that had caused ladies to have a heart attack....

We continued our journey deeper into the islands and soon stopped for some kyaking. Erin and I were very keen to hit the water and we weren't dissappointed. The guide led us into a massive enclosed lagoon which was only accessible at low tide by paddling through a cave. It was soo peaceful and beautiful in the lagoon.

Before we knew it the sun was setting on our first night in Halong Bay and we paddled back to the main boat. Dinner that night was delicious and the chef did an amazing job carving flowers our of carrots, chillies, and other vegetables. The food again was amazing!! It turned out to be our guides birthday that night so the crew threw a celebratory party for him and a seafood feast with lots of rice wine.... It wasnt long before celebratory cheers turned into an excuse to skull rice wine, some of which was extra potent stuff brought on board by a traveller who sourced it from markets in the mountain village of Sapa. Ohh how it burnt....... In Lao style the shots of rice wine needed to be skulled in one shot and the glass turned upside down on the drinkers head, unfortunately for the Italian fellow he couldnt drink all of his and had a rice wine shower..... And not long afterwards the Karoke machine got fired up for some challenging singing in both English and Vietnamese.......

Our second day on Halong Bay started off a little rough, which I directly blame on the rice wine...... We started our day with a hike up Tee Top mountain to get beautiful 360 degree views of the bay. The hike to the top was a challenge in the 40 degree celcius temp with 80% humidity, but the effort was worth it when we got site of the views.

The afternoon was spent swimming around, jumping off the boat and generally having a great ole time in the water. In the late afternoon Erin and I were dropped off at our beach bungalow on a small beach. Unfortunate for me when we left the boat I snapped off the metal door handle to our room when retrieving our luggage. This caused a bit of panic amoungst the boat crew but eventually got sorted out.... The bungalow was fantastic and was perched above the water, so we could hear the water lapping underneath us. We had a relaxed evening sat out on our balcony having a few local beers.

The following day the boat picked us up at 8:00 and we started our cruise back to the mainland. To my peace of mind the door handle had been fixed over night. After a long drive back to Hanoi in a packed bus we got back to the lovely Holiday Diamond hotel in Hanoi. We met up with friends (Sally & Chris from Melbourne) that we had met on the trail in the hotel and headed out for a final dinner and drinks in Hanoi.

Hanoi was a fun place, full of action, scooters, and general madness of busy life. We were sad to leave Vietnam as it had provided some fantastic food, great sites, and a very happy and warm people. But Laos called and we were soon on a flight bound for Luang Prabang.