Today we travelled 4 hours by car to Halong Bay which is just over 100 miles east of Hanoi. It is famous for its 1,600 islands and islets, forming spectacular scenery of limestone pillars that rise out of the ocean - it is often included in lists of natural wonders of the world. The journey there was very boring as there wasn't much to look at - so boring in fact that we both fell asleep for part of the journey!
We are spending the night on a junk boat which has 16 cabins on board.
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| Our boat the Paradise Luxury |
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| Our cabin with a balcony |
The scenery is spectacular, even if it is quite misty it gives it a certain atmosphere!
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| View from our balcony |
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| Halong Bay |
After a buffet lunch on board we came to our first stop - Hang Sung Sot (surprise cave). We were warned that there were about 400 steps around the caves and the first lot were knackering but after that it wasn't too bad!
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| View from the entrance to the cave |
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| Inside Surprise cave |
They wouldn't say what the surprise was in the cave but I think we found it - see below. Our guide said it looked like a finger.....hmmmmmm
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| Good grief! |
It was quite humid in the cave and, along with the stairs that we had to climb, we were sweaty messes by the end! Whilst waiting to return to our boat we were chatting to the guide, a young vietnamese lady. She said to me that I look like ..... And I didn't quite catch what she said so I asked her to repeat herself, now I am thinking 'a stunner' or 'a bit sweaty' but no, she said I looked like a man!! I said 'oh thanks' and then Peter and I looked at each other and got the giggles and couldn't stop - she said it is because you have short hair but we just lost it and she just walked away as we were laughing so much.
Our next stop was Ti Top Island which has a small beach and a look out on the summit of the island. We decided to go up to the summit - all 300 steps up to the summit.......it was so tiring, and our legs were like jelly, but you would have people who were coming down saying 'you're nearly there' and I was so glad when we got to the top!
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| We made it! |
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| View from the summit |
Afterwards we went to sit on the beach to recover - it did feel weird sitting on a beach under thick heavy cloud but it was certainly warm enough (you're just not going to get a tan!)
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| Relaxing on the beach. |
In the evening we had a 5 course fine dining dinner which was lovely. One of the staff members was a singer and did a few numbers - she was good but it was a bit weird!
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| The boats in the bay at dusk |
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