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| Ha Long Bay baby! |
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| The harbour |
Vietnamese legend tells of many years ago, of a great dragon that lived in the mountains. As it made its way to the coast its flailing tail gouged out valleys and crevasses as it plunged into the sea. The areas dug up, by it’s tail became filled with water leaving only parts of the high land visible.
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| Our boat the; 'Ha Long Wonder' |
These ‘left’ parts of land, total about 3000 islands, where Jason and I took a two night cruise around, stopping off on some of the islands and staying a night on one, called Cat Ba Island.
Our boat was an old style traditional Vietnamese boat and was good however not as wonderful as it was sold to us in the brochure…damn those scams!!
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| Our cabin, the washing machine!! |
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| Leaving the harbour behind |
The room was adequate but it was jokes trying to get to sleep, with the generator running, the small vibrations made us feel like we were sleeping on top of a washing machine!! LOL The food was basic, we were glad when we stayed on the island allowing us the freedom to choose our own meals, however…. the views made it TOTALLY worth it!
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| The limestone mountains |
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| Looks like a painting, right..?! |
The incredible islands rise up from the emerald green waters of the Gulf of Tonkin
The islands are covered with green foliage and have limestone mountains standing tall. Most of them have grotto’s and caves and as you sail between them and around them, you feel a sense of peace and wonder at their beauty.
The first day we sailed to an island, where we explored two caves. They were large and winding and again were filled with stalagmites.
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| Caves were cool |
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| The caves were well lit...?! |
They were good, however a little too commercialised for us, especially as we had previously been to the Kong Lor cave in Laos
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| Me, in the not so scary cave! |
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| All it needed was a sounds system and it would have been a great club!! |
After lunch we headed to a water village, where their main source of work is fishing. It was unique to see houses built on floating polystyrene blocks, complete even with their pets/dogs running around their floating islands!!
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| The fishing village below the islands |
The women from the village sail around in boats selling fruit and supermarket goods to the tourists on the big boats.
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| Their shop's on boats! |
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| On one boat we saw, the seller's young daughter, stood at the front holding up a pineapple and shouting in her Vietnamese, English 'Pineapple, pineapple!!' |
Here we docked our boat and did some kayaking…I am pleased to say Jason and I handled ourselves like experts, thanks to Captain Jack Sparrow’s first lesson! Only experiencing a little doubt when one massive cruise boat started heading our way, which resulted in some panic paddling, to avoid, but we survived!!! LOL
That evening was a laugh as everyone just got very merry on Tiger beers and secretly stowed away, whiskey, which we mixed with sprite to make it look like beer, avoiding their service charge for bringing your own alcohol, mwa-ha-ha (evil laugh). The only music we had, was hits from the 90’s but this served us well, taking us down memory lane and definitely made our boat - the ‘party boat’!!
And what a delight, when we met up with Gemma and Jenny our friends from England
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| Welcome to Cat Ba island! |
The next day we sailed south of Ha Long Bay to the island of Cat Ba
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| Gemma and me, victorious over the mountain! |
Half way up Jason decided to quit, while I carried on, however no sooner had I left him, that I heard him calling my name. I was like, ‘babe is that you…?!!’ Later he told me how some American guy lied to him saying it was only 15mins to the peak, with incredible views, so J was persuaded!!!
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| I was so proud of J, climbing 'Liar Mountain', what we nicknamed it, after everyone told us it was good! |
The climb was treacherous with huge rocks to climb over and parts that were so high that they had steel ladders with broken railings to help you reach the top. Once at the top, yes the views were indeed magnificent and somewhat dizzying, however the joy of being there was masked by the fact we had to climb back down…!! Aaahhhh!! Doubting whether the climb was actually worth the difficulty, aching joints and sweaty peril! We were so exhausted! LOL And on the way down J was so bitter at being lied to, he felt the need for revenge so began telling those climbing up, it was only 5mins more and so worth it, ‘nearly there’ he’d say!
One Chinese man and his wife had such difficulty, that when he finally reached the top, we all applauded him!! And he summed it up, when on the bus someone asked him was it worth it and he went ‘No!!’ the whole bus just cracked up cos’ it was the ‘truth ruth!
That evening we walked around Cat Ba, which is a quiet island however carefully gearing itself for tourism with a planned beach complex that will be amazing when finished.
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| Cat Ba island was quiet but pretty |
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| The islands is developing itself further for the hoards of tourists that come it's way. |
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| Sunset over the island |
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| We sat in bar overlooking this view into the bay |
We ended up in this bar overlooking the sea where the cocktails were flowing. At one point Jason and Julian (German boy who was so sweet that we ended up hanging out with us) got involved in a heated game of foosball (table football) with some Vietnamese locals. One girl was so set on winning, we nicknamed her the Vietnamese Monica from friends! After an episode where Monica beats Chandler
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| The game got heated The West vs South East Asia! |
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| End score; Vietnam 1 - England 1. Julian and Jason battled well!! |
The journey home was not so pleasant as it was just long and involved a bus (hate them!!) and although there were many times it felt like we were waiting for our guide, it was so worth it, as Ha Long Bay is spectacular.
Its no wonder that James Bond and Tom Hanks’ ‘Castaway’ were filmed there with their exotic and stunning locations!
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