Ha Long Bay

After arriving in Hanoi after a fairly sleepless couple of flights via Kuala Lumpur the first thing I did was book some trips, including one to Ha Long Bay starting the next morning for 3 days/2 nights. After travelling on my own for a week I was looking forward to meeting some different people on the trip and I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed when the first people I met going on the trips were two retired Australian sisters. A few younger people soon got on the bus, but in our 16 there was 4 raucous Australian Gentlemen from Perth who'd been here with the Australian Air Force in the war. There were also 2 German chaps, 2 English girls, a Scottish couple (he's a camera man on River City, wayhey!) and 3 British guys who'd met at Leicester Uni, one of whom was Scottish, meaning 4 out of the 16 were Scottish. At lunch time we got on our boat which was pretty swish! We went to visit some caves on one of the Islands in the Bay (the bay is full of hundreds of limestone "karsts') which were impressive, and then went Kayaking around some other islands (one of the Australian Ladies managed to fall in when disembarking, whoops!) . Lunch and Dinner on the boat were also very nice, the only problem being the price of the beer. All the old folks went to bed quite early, and we sat on the top deck (it was Baltic actually) playing cards and having a few beers, surrounded by about 40 other similar boats.

The next day we were taken to Cat Ba Island where the Germans, the Aussie Ladies and I got off as we were doing the 3 day trip. We climbed a small peak with a rickety watchtower on the Island, checked into our hotel and went Kayaking again. This involved a minibus journey complete with dodgy music videos played on a screen which was covering the rearview mirror, which the driver seemed to give to much attention to. The next day we drove back across the Island, got on another boat back to the shore, had another nice lunch and drove home. It really was a very picturesque area, shame it was a little chilly and so no-one went swimming (the waters weren't as crystal clear as advertised either!

Photos:



This is the view from the top of the island with the caves



Another boat sailing past at sunset.



On the rickety lookout tower on the island.