So yesterday, 13th June 2011, we woke up early to get ready for the bus coming to pick us up for our Halong Bay trip. Had the usual breakfast again yum yum and before we knew it , it was 8am and the bus had arrived. Most mornings(in fact all day) is mostly hot and sticky, so was a relief to get onto the nice air conditioned bus. We went round Hanoi picking up the other passengers who were on the trip as well and off we went. Our tour guide "Duc" or something to that effect told us if we were lucky, when we got out to the more rural areas we may see farmers transporting their livelistock to market.. Now ducks, chickens i can imagine in baskets on back of motorbike... pigs in baskets... hmmmm do-able and i've seen the pictures...but a COW! or a Buffalo! i thought you've got to be kidding me on. Unfortunately,he never got the chance to prove us right as we never saw one. We stopped off on the 4 hour journey (it's not so far but traffic is so hectic takes a while to get anywhere) so that the driver could have a rest and drink.. it's touristy in the sense u get chucked off at a shop full of statues,pictures, clothes, jewellery... and shop assistants follow you around desperate for you to make a purchase.... but we didn't for the very reason we'd have to carry it allll the way south with us and could prob get the same items cheaper in market in Saigon.
We arrived at the Halong Bay harbour at around noon and boarded the small boat..( red carpet down the middle may i add!) that would take us to our Junk boat which would be our home for next day and a half.. the "Glory cruise" and it was magnificent. This boat was only 3 years old, and very wooden, shiny and new. The interior felt like a 5 star hotel and the staff were so so friendly. We thought to ourselves.."we've madea great choice here ". We checked in, got keys to our room and we were sailing off into Halong Bay itself, which has 1,969 islands. Duc told us if we counted and found another it would get named after us and we would get free visit to Halong bay.... we all knew this was an unlikely story but tried to count anyway, a impossible task. We all sat up top deck for a while, enjoying the views and sunshine before being called in for our lunch. WOW! is all i can say.... 9 courses . Seafood, chicken stir fry, rice paper spring rolls, you name it , they had it.. We were stuffed after about the 4th... you sure can't say the Vietnamese don't look after their guests. After lunch we arrived at our 1st stop. We were supposed to go to one of the floating villages. of whcih there are 4 in Halong bay and over 2000 people live on them, however, we were informed the ladies who would row us round these villages were on strike as it were and so onto option 2. We went through a cave on a row boat(i forget the name of it now) which was lovely, i can't believe how green the water is. We then went to a beach area where you could climb up some stairs (and there were lots) to get a view of halong bay from up high... amazing! and the beach was pretty nice too, glad i had my bikini on as we all went for a swim, water was warm, sun was shining :) paradise. only issue was water was very salty, probably from all the rocks around, pretty disgusting if you accidently swallowed some.
After our swim, we headed back to the boat to shower , relax and then eat dinner. Was nice sitting there drinking my pina colada watching the sun go down :) Only 4-5 hours after lunch and guess what ... another 9 courses!! This one included, squid deep friend in batter with chilli sauce, prawns in chilli, mango salad with shrimp, beef with vegetables, rice with coconut milk,clams with lemongrass, fried spring rolls and fruit and chocolate cake... i forget the other one. Now, i don't normally like seafood but here is a good place to try it, fresh out the sea and all i can say is i like the squid(calamari) an the prawns and clams weren't half bad either... success!!.. after dinner we relaxed and some of us went up to top deck again. Charlotte and i had a wee balcony out from our room facing back of the boat so we sat on that for a while and listened (and sang along ) to the kareoke going on , on the boat near us.Was amusing to say the least, hitting numbers like frank sinatras" i did it my way" - the guy really went for it... and many others.
We awoke this morning at 6am ( midnight back home) the sound of the engine running and the boat moving. We got up and went for " breakfast" consisting of what they call cookies but we'd say more pastries, croissant (very sweet) coconut pastry thing and a small muffin cake thing and tea. After about an hour sailing we go onto the small boat again and off we went to the Sung Sot cave (surprise cave) .. which was unreal.. so so big. Nice views of the bay from outside and inside there are many natural rock formations that will amuse you... a buddha, monkey, turtle and..... cock rock....(they say it looks like a finger but who are they kidding, and i did not name it this to be clear... lonely planet names it as that in it's famous guidebook )
After the cave we got back up on the main boat to pack up our things and check out. We also had brunch to get through.. Luckily it was not 9 courses this time!was simply a bowl of Beef Pho.. famous soup in Vietnam and it was delicious. It was facinating watching them make it. The chef first got the noodles dipped it in some i guess stock and put that in the bowl, he then got a few strips of very very thin strips of beef and dipped that in another pot of the tomato, chilli water soup stock stuff.. (no clue) and it was cooked in a few seconds (amazing!.. ) and that went in the bowl too. Some greenery went on top, with a dash of chilli sauce and some of the tomato, chilli stock .. chopsticks and off you went. was sooooo goood! but also quite spicy .
After brunch , we headed back to the shore and disembarked, getting on our bus and back to Hanoi. Still no cow on motorbike but the drive was still very pretty, through rural land and what not. We were dropped off at our hotel in Hanoi and this is where i am now. We've just had a complete torrential downpour and thunderstorm. (you think its bad at home should see the rain here!) and the thunder is soo LOUD~!. Huge Huge cracks verheard. but thats stopped now. was exciting for a while. We are waiting to be picked up by our sleeper bus which will take us down to Hue overnight. Sooo for now that's it, will write again when we get to Hue.
love sara xxx
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