Ha Long Bay 11/5 - 13/5

We spent about three to four hours on another crap bus ride to get to Ha Long Bay, got a cab to the hotel only to find the one recommended to us via an online booking service was closed, we discovered that they had two separate buildings, the cheaper one was closed for renovations while the allegedly more classy establishment was next door. We ended up staying in the more expensive side, mainly because we’d already booked our Ha Long Bay cruise in Hanoi and we were to be picked up from the hotel. Well the less we can say about this establishment the better, so we’ll move on. We were picked up the next day about 12 and made our way to the boat. It was a reasonable size, with enough room for twelve passengers and the crew. We had a mixture of people on board, an older couple from Adelaide, a father and daughter from the UK, four Spanish backpackers and a couple, Stefan (German) and Quy (Vietnamese) with their young son Maximus. We had lunch as soon as we got on board and headed out into the bay and we got to know some of our fellow passengers a bit. After lunch we got into our rooms, they were quite nice, and we had a bit of a relax. They main group went to have a look at a cave in the afternoon, we stayed back as we were advised it was going to be pretty hard going so we had a bit of time to hang out on the upper deck. Once the group came back we all set out on kayaks to do some exploring. Kirsten sat up front in ours, I sat in the back. Those hoping for a tale of disaster and cursing will no doubt be pleasantly surprised to learn we did quite well and only rammed some of our fellow kayakers a couple of times. We’re both so glad we went out, it was fantastic to see everything from the ocean level. We paddled our way out from the boat along the coast for about 20 minutes before we headed into a cave in ‘Monkey Island’. Once we went through the cave and into the other side, we were totally enclosed by the steep rocks and foliage. There’s meant to be a colony of monkeys at the island, but our guide suspected that a previous group had fed them so they disappeared after that. After taking in the view for a while, we headed back to the boat to wash up and have dinner. All the food was pretty reasonable, mostly Vietnamese dishes. There was some raucous Vietnamese karaoke after dinner, with the Spanish guys joining in as it was one of their birthdays. The next day after breakfast we went cruising around the bay, taking in a fair bit on the way to Ha Long City, such as ‘Camel Island’, 'Frog Island’, ‘Fighting Cock Island’ and ‘Lonely Island’ - so called because they look a little like their animal namesakes and in the case of ‘Lonely Island’, it’s on its own out in the middle of the bay. Our guide said that it’s meant to have some significance for lonely singles who will find love after visiting the island. I’ve kept this description of the trip reasonably brief as it’s hard to do the scenery justice with a description, we’ll have some photos up soon to really show what it’s all about. We made it back into Ha Long City in time for lunch, followed by a better bus ride (more comfortable with air con this time) back to Hanoi. Young Maximus was doing his best to entertain those around him. We got a hotel right in the heart of the old quarter for ten bucks a night so we’re pretty happy and we ended up staying in after dinner.