Halong Bay - 24th Jan

Today we were leaving Hanoi to travel to Halong Bay.This was a place I'd been particularly looking forward to as the boys on Top Gear had gone to Halong Bay as part of their Vietnamese road trip and it had looked amazing.

It was going to take us 4 hours to get there but it was great just people watching out of the minibus. Vietnam is so different to anywhere I've ever been to before. There are motorbikes everywhere, loads of little stalls and shops along the road and thin, tall houses because land tax is based on the size of land the house is on. The house fascias were all beautifully decorated but the sides and back were all plain concrete.

Travelling Gardening  Centre

Typical tall houses

After 2 hours driving we stopped for a toilet break at a designated rest stop, along with every other tourist bus on route to Halong Bay. The rest stop was at a centre which had been set up to support teenagers who'd been disabled through the hereditary effects of Agent Orange, a toxic herbicidewhich had been dropped by the Americans during the Vietnam war. When we walked in you could see all the teenagers sat at tables stitching tapestries. There was little interaction between themselves and not one of them looked at us. The centre was quite cold and they were all sat in coats. It was a strange place. As well as tapestries the centre sold clothes, ornaments, really expensive jewellery and some rather odd books. We were followed everywhere by a salesperson which got rather annoying.

New Zealanders - horse back carrying a surf board??

Two hours later we reached Halong Bay and were transferred onto a small boat to take us to the main boat which we'd be touring and stopping the night on. As soon as we got on board our companions complained that the main boat was too cold. Andy and I agreed it was cold but appreciated it was a cold day, we were on an old boat and Vietnam is not a rich country. The conversation between our companions and Dai got quite heated and so we went outside to take some pictures. In the end the boat had to phone head office to get special permission to have the heating on during the day but only in the cabins not in the main deck where the heater had been removed.

Our cabin

We were served a lavish lunch of 10 courses on board the boat. I particularly enjoyed being made to taste local dishes I wouldn't ordinarily have ordered and every course was delicious. We then spent some time cruising around some of the 3,000 islands on the way to some caves. Sadly the weather was quite overcast and so we didn't see Halong Bay for all it's glory but apparently clear days are very very rare and we were lucky it wasn't foggy.

Fishing Village

As we approached the caves there was a massive tanoy belting out a voice in Vietnamese telling the boats to look after the bay and not leave litter. Right by this was a small floating fishing village and I wondered how the residents coped living in the middle of nowhere yet having to listen to this same message being belted out over and over every day. I was however quite impressed with the ingenuity of the locals who rowed their small boats alongside ours offering drinks, food and souvenirs.

The caves were amazing – probably the biggest caves I've ever been to – but there were so many people there. We couldn't get over the number of tourists filing through the one way system of the caves and ended up taking more pictures of them than the cave itself. We were a little disappointed with Dai as we could see other tour leaders pointing out different features of the cave but Dai just told us what a stalactite and stalagmite were....and we'd already guessed that for ourselves.

After the cave we were taken to a beach which this time only had a small hand full of people on it. It was far too cold for a swim but Andy and I climbed a hill to get some great views of the bay.

Our boat

Dinner wasn't till 7pm so we enjoyed a beer on board and did some reading. Dinner was equally as good as lunch – 10 courses – all delicious. It was amazing to think the food had been prepared in such a tiny kitchen below deck.

After dinner there wasn't a great deal to do and it was a bit chilly on deck so we had an early night in our warm cabin.