Hi Guys,
My travel journalling continued :)
Trip to Ha Long Bay was fantastic, amazing. Did you know it's nominated as one of the natural wonders of the world? M is a wealth of travel facts since she works in the industry.
Yesterday morning we all congregated at the hostel and left at 8am for our 4 hour long bus ride out to ha long bay. Gave me a good opportunity to get most of the way through Time Travellers Wife (finished it on the bus ride home, FANTASTIC book). Funny, while waiting in the hostel bar for our bus to get there, they were playing the superbowl live, at 8am on Monday morning, quick reality check. Got on the boat around noon and had lunch - then started our 2 hr ride out into the bay. It was beautiful, Hundreds of luscious rock outcroppings, and weather that is very misty and quiet feeling. It was a great break from the uber-hot and muggy bustling city.
The boat was wonderful, 4 stories - top was a sunning deck with lots of chairs to lay out on (too bad no sun). 2nd deck was a bar and dining area (where we had our late night festivities) 3rd deck was almost right at water level and was all the cabins, and the underneath part I'm assuming is where the staff stayed. The room was beautiful, private bathroom and 2 beds (still no working air conditioning). I was worried about being on the boat, but it was not tippy at all and I didn't have a problem with sea-sickness at all. It was totally fine!!
In the afternoon we went kayaking all around Ha long bay, parked the kayaks at a beach/cave and went caving into the back dark parts. The communication wasn't that good b/c the guide spoke very little english, so although we brought flashlights, we didn't have them with us for the kayaking/caving. It was fun anyhow, your eyes adjust to the light and there were 2 flashlights the guide had. We continued kayaking after that and saw a big family of monkeys up on the cliffs, maybe 30 feet up, just hanging off the side on some branches, swinging and picking at leaves. We parked our kayaks right under them to take pics from the water. After we got back to the boat all the guys and Mand me (the only girls!) jumped from the top deck into the water to go swimming, they said it was 4 meters, not sure how many feet that is.
We got back on the boat and had dinner, and happy hour which was buy 2 get 1 free drinks (promoting volume ha). We played card games and flippy-cup late into the night. Us Americans and a few Canadians taught the British, Irish, Danish and Australians on the boat how to play flip cup. M and I were the only Americans on the boat. Of course our team won flip cup, so the losing team had to jump off the side of the boat at about midnight. Good times, this time we stayed dry.
This morning we had to get up at 7:30am for breakfast and then laid out on the top deck (some sun, although still misty) and I finished my book and we napped a little. Then had a 4 hr bus ride back, so today has been mostly travel. The views from the bay were amazing though, can't wait to show my pics.
M and I are going to have a drink for happy hour at the hostel bar now and then head out to dinner at one of the local places recommended by the guide book. I need to try some pho noodle soup still. So far the beef noodle soup I had on the 1st day is still the best thing I've had. Tomorrow we fly out to Hoi An, might try to get that soup again before we go.
A
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