Our boat for the first night
After a pretty good sleep we were collected as promised and took a minibus to Halong City (not far from Haiphoung but much nicer) where we picked up our boat at lunchtime. It was a triple decker: bottom level were AC bedrooms with en suite, middle floor was a restaurant/sitting area, top deck was a sun deck. The boats all have sails in the pictures but in reality none of them ever use them. We started off by having an amazing seafood lunch and we knew we'd done the right thing choosing the luxury trip!
View from the cave entrance
The scenery was fabulous, albeit full of tourist boats, but still wonderful and everything that you imagine it. Again we took tons of pictures and one just doesn't do it credit so do click on the picture and check out our flickr site for more. We stopped after a few hours at a nearby cave - "Amazing cave" - which was interesting but amazing is pushing it a bit! Great view of the bay though. There are 1969 islands in a sort of arc surrounding the Vietnam coast, and including Cat Ba island which is the biggest of them all and the only inhabited one. We had a quick swim as the sun went down and then moored up in a beautiul bay for the night.
Our fellow tourists were a mixed bunch: 2 Italian dudes of whom one spoke broken English, a French couple (broken English), some Korean girls, some Vietnamese boys and a group of very stuck up English students (Cambridge Med students). We tabled with the Italians and despite us not being able to speak each others' languages, they proved to be fun companions (Francesco and Deluca)!
El gets some R&R
The next day had us up early to be picked up by a smaller boat and taken to Cat Ba island (but the nature reserve side of it) for some cycling, a short walk, and then a bit of kayaking. It was incredibly hot but it was quite interesting to see a local village and have a coke while being amused by a mud hut next to a concrete house complete with the compulsory cable TV!
We ended up back at Cat Ba town but at the nicest hotel. Well actually although the room was ok the bed seemed to have some kind of crater in the mattress so it wasn't as comfy a night's sleep as we'd hoped. The hotel also had a DVD system where you could choose a DVD and they'd play it for you. Out of their crappy selection we choose Pride and Prejudice and it came on as expected then after 2 minutes stopped. White noise! After about 2 calls to reception it was replaced by "10 years of Celine Dion" AAARRRGGGHHH noooooooOOOOOOO!!! In the end, after the 5th phone call we gave up and had an early night!
The 3rd day had us go back to a big boat via the small boat, and then back to Halong City. Kieran had accidentally left his swimming trunks on the previous big boat and our tour guide, Chien, was dubious that we'd get them back as they never know which boat will be used. We rolled up to the big boat and Lo and Behold but one of the crew was wearing the shorts! We told Chien and the guy disappeared and a still warm pair of shorts were pressed into our hands as we boarded! Typical!
The landscape here is totally amazing: really the stuff of magic and legends. You really do expect dragons to rise up out of the water, and the bay is actually called "Descending Dragon" in it's original name. No photos can do it justice as you can never fit it all in but we certainly had fun trying! It was good fun with lots of relaxing, some drinking, and El even managed to speak proper French to the French couple for over an hour on the last day: and even managed to remember a sentence using the subjunctive so all in all a great trip. We were deposited back in Hanoi with plenty of time to do the city before leaving Vietnam.
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