Halong Bay Days 5 - 7

Hello everyone!! We are back in Hanoi after 3 glorious days in Halong Bay.

We woke up Thursday morning had some breakkie then were picked up by our tour guide Nam (as he told us Nam like Vietnam). The drive out to Halong Bay was insane with trucks over tkaing trucks and then a bus overtaking both trucks. I think we both put our feet through the floor on the breaks about 100 times praying it was going to stop - and of course it always did.

Also found out how our beef got delivered - yep on the back of a motorbike. Drove past the guy with a dead cow on the back of his bike, head flapping one side, tail and legs on the other - unfortunately we didnt get a photo of this :(

Arrived in Halong Bay a bit after mid day and it was straight onto the boat. Our boat was called Amigo and our room was extremely tiny but nice. The shower was above the toilet and we had to take turns standing next to the bed to get changed etc as there wasnt enough room for 2.

Sailed out into Halong Bay to some caves called "Surprising Caves". The reason its called surprising could  be because each cave is surprisingly bigger than the last, or due to the fact that one of the limestone is shaped like a guy who is very "happy".

We then jumped into a kayak and paddled around investigating some of the 2000 islands in Halong Bay. Truly breath taking. Back on the boat for a seafood dinner - squid, prawns, whole fish, chicken rice, the works! Sensational stuff (except the prawns for Tony). We are actually surprised at how much fried food they eat! We thought we would be having more rice paper rolls and lighter meals but they crumb and fry just about everything.

After dinner we had cocktails and relaxed on the top of the boat on sun beds. It was a bit over cast but the almost full moon was out with a few stars to light the night sky.

Retired to our (tiny) cabin and drifted off to sleep with the gentle rocking of the boat.

The second day was as good as the first. We said to Cat Ba Island (the biggest in Halong Bay). Our tour group is a mixed bunch including Spanish (loud), American, English, Polish and a French couple who we have spent most of the time with. Their English is not too good and our french is terrible so we generally play charades when trying to talk - makes life fun :)

We arrived at Cat Ba Island and spent about an hour cycling through the villages. This is what I thought the trip would be like - getting up and close with locals and seeing how they live. It mkaes you wonder why we need such materialistis things and that we could go home and sell all our stuff and (shock horror) still survive. We stopped for a break and a cool drink (the humiditiy here is intense) and found out these people only got electricity 1 year ago.

We made our way back down the mountain (on our rusty, break failing bikes). Then had lunch - today it was fish, prawns, chips( they love their french fries too), spring rolls, chicken, rice and some fish dish that was wrapped around lemon grass sticks (Alexis I will be getting you the recipe so you can make it for us!)

After lunch we arrived at Monkey Island for a very welcomed swim and some monkey action (well action with monkey's as that sort of came out wrong). The monkeys come right up to you and grab food, sunnies or what ever you have in your hands. We saw one monley up a palm tree with some boardies on its head  - feel sorry for whomever it took them from.

From here we said good bye to our tour group and they were going to sleep in a hotel on Cat Ba IOsland whereas we chose to sleep on the boat again. We got on a mini bus and travelled (very quickly) across to the other side of the island where our next goupd were waiting for us. The bus had a MASSIVE crack in the front window!! Who knows how that happened? See photo on facebook.

Unfortunately dinner was the exact same thing as last night (as most people generally dont sleep 2 nights on the boat - but we figured we can stay in hotels whenever we want but dont always have the opportuinity to sleep on a boat) even down to pineapple spring roll light and the amazing swan carved out of tomato. We met 2 Irish travellers who were coming to the end of their trip. We spent the night drinking and laughing and had a great time with them. In Tony's travels he has found Irish and Canadians are great to get along with and these guys didnt disappoint.

We woke up and had another peaceful day cruising back to Halong Bay city.

Two quotes of the boat trip that we will always remember -
1) "Slapper" when being told what the fish "Snapper" was when put in front of us.
2) Me asking the French couple if they had been to Hanoi (which is where we were all picked up from) - their blank look back at me, probably thinking stupid Australians!!

We arrived back at Hanoi tired, hot and not looking forward to the hustle and bustle compared to thew gloriousness of Halong Bay. We checked in, showered, changed, booked our train for tomorrow, then checked emails, and organised clothes washing. Then we headed out to book tickets to the water puppets and will see it tomorrow morning at 9:30.

We went to get dinner and thought we would try our luck at an alley way of food shops we had stumbled across when we were here (before we went to Halong Bay) instead of an expensive $3 restaurant - yes thats expensive here!! We picked one and sat down and the guy brought us a menu. We chose chicken and mushroom soup, honey chicken, spring rolls each (as the waiter held up 1 finger so we thought it meant 1 spring roll per serve) and 2 beers. When the spring rolls arrived they were a whole plate each - about 15 rolls per plate. We laughed at us stupid tourists and by the end of it almost ate all of them. A quick walk back via buying big bottles of water and we were back to our room, our sactuary with only the noise of horns coming from outside but we were safe and quiet again - ahhh bliss.

So far Tony hasn't quite managed to get the idea of NOT PUTTING HIS TOOTHBRUSH UNDER THE TAP, as every time he goes to brush his teeth I hear the fmailar "damn it!" I cant wait to be able to flush look paper.

We are now going to head to Hue on an over night train that leaves at 7pm and arrives at 7am. We wont have internet access so dont miss us too much.