We booked our Ha Long trip with Imperial Junk which we found out the name after we booked! It wasn't junk though eh Leanne & Alice ;) It started at 8am from Hanoi when we got picked up by our tour guide Tony the Tiger, who deserves a full description later as he was hilarious & made our trip a right laugh!! We was jammed into a minibus and off we went. The journey was 4 hours but didn't seem to long as we all chatted & told stories along the way. We stopped half way at a touristy shop that sold hand made embroidered pictures, jewellery, big white garden statues, different stones & gems that were really nice but quite expensive. The place was obviously purposely built for the tourists to stop off at on the way to Ha Long! One Vietnamese woman followed us around the whole shop for ages trying to sell us stuff and she couldn't get it through to her brain that we didn't want anything & we were literally running away from her! Crazy lady!

When we arrived in Ha Long Bay, Tony led us to our boat waving his red flag like a proper leader. The guys English was really good & he had an American twang which was really funny. I couldn't help but laugh at him! Plus Lianne didn't help as she was the same.. We was like two little school girls when we looked at each other bursting with laughter! Later in the trip, we all got the nick name 'Bang Tidy' which just made us laugh even more every time he said it!! Good times :)

The boat was nice & the rooms were comfortable, better than the hotel we were staying in at Hanoi! The only down fall was the cockroaches Leanne & Alice had in their room... we'll come to that story later! We all sat down for a family style served feast that had sticky rice, fresh cooked fish, salads, shrimps & a seafood dish that was delicious, even though we had no idea what it was. We then headed up to the deck with a beer to soak in the lovely views of one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Ha Long Bay.

Our first stop was a visit to Sung Sot cave, which translates to Surprising cave in English, with Tony & the group. The cave was beautiful as we walked through it listening to Tony point out different animal shapes that the limestone had created... I saw a few of the 'animals' but with half of them I thought he was hallucinating! After exploring the cave, we headed down to the pier & floating village for kayaking. Alice wanted a drink so she pulled this random vietnamese boat shop over & bought stuff off her through a fishnet.. we was about 5 metres above her wondering how she was going to get the items to us then she pulled out a fish net, put in the items & held them up to Alice... Obviously they are pros at this!

Me and Lianne teamed up for a kayak and Leanne and Roz, Alice stayed on the shore as she wasn't too keen on getting wet! We paddled around the floating village and headed over to deserted limestone islands and stone beaches which was awesome! Me and Lianne were paddling like lunatics! Haha... It reminded me of getting into Moose pond at camp and felt really good being back in a Kayak, especially with the views of Ha Long Bay!

When we made it back to the boat, we got showered and ready for dinner. It was funny having a shower as the bathroom was so tiny there was no shower cubicle, it was just a case of turn on the shower and flood the whole bathroom! At dinner (tea time to you northern peeps) we all decided to get 2 bottles of red wine, Alice wasn't drinking it so it was just us 4. We had a really good meal again with pumpkin soup, chicken salads, pork skewers, rice (standard), pork & peppers, battered fish, dragon fruit and even more red wine!

HALF OF THIS STORY IS MISSING CAUSE THE STUPID BLOG DELETED HALF!! Taken me 2 hours writing this... Pissed off... I will rewrite when I can :0(

So as the story continues...

We were all sat around the table eating dinner, drinking red wine and having a laugh at Tony calling us Bang Tidy, Victoria Beckham along with other random names! Nam, who was a member of the crew, came and sat with us asking if we would like to play a game to win a free bottle of wine! Of course we did! If we lost, we had to buy the bottle... We wasn't going to lose eh girls? But after numerous cocktail stick puzzles, we were adding another bottle of red to our tab as we was beaten by the little vietnamese guys tricks! They were good though :)

So now we come to the cockroach story... Me and Lianne needed a wee so decided to head to Leanne and Alice's room as it was closer. As I sat waiting, I saw this huge cockroach that looked like it was on steroids run cross the skirting boards!! As I screamed 'cockroach', Lianne came running out of the bathroom and we legged it out half laughing & half squeamish looking for one of the guys to get it out. We dragged him in the room and he managed to get it to our relief.

Leanne wasn't too impressed & had a look of worry when we told her the story as she had found one earlier too! After some thought and more red wine, the cockroaches were put to the back of her head... Well for the time being that was!

We then headed out to the back to the boat with Tony & co. to do some squid fishing with our glasses in hand full of red wine. We was told it was easy to catch the squid as we were given our bamboo fishing rods, even though it wasn't squid season, and the light on the back of the boat attracts them. After an hour of sitting in the cold bobbing sticks up and down in the water, we was convinced they was lying to us! We did acquire another bottle of red though off a woman on a random floating shop... They always seem to appear just when you need them!

The squid fishing came to a halt as Leanne had gone back to her room and found even more cockroaches!!! We all headed there with 3 of the crew in tow searching for the little beasties. After no luck, there was no way Leanne was sleeping in that room. It looked liked we were topping & tailing until one of the crew members rocked up with a huge mosquito net to cover the bed. After putting it up & asking if we were happy we then all crawled into it! We huddled inside the net like it was a shield from the outside world. We sat laughing (I was actually crying with laughter at the whole situation) listening to Tony's life stories, drinking even more wine that he had brought us to apologise, and making him down a glass much to his reluctant. He was really professional and stated he didn't drink whilst working... Well that was until I was literally pouring it down his neck! So here we was all sat having fun in the cockroach room in our little den, the room that we had been running away from all night! Haha, we can only blame the red wine!

The night was getting late and the red wine was taking its toll, so I decided it was time for bed. I headed out to the back of the boat where Leanne was having a cig to say night which then led to even more squid fishing!! True to the Crew's word, the water was full of shawls of squid swimming around waiting to be caught! Leanne joined us and half an hour later we had two squid's in our bucket! :) Unfortunately I didn't get one.. I gave up after a while being too drunk and impatient!

The next morning we was up at 6.45am with a major bad wine head! We headed out on a paddle boat into a peaceful lagoon that was surrounded by towering Halong limestone islands. Families of wild monkeys, babies & adult ones, were hanging around on the cliff sides & on random stone islands that were dotted around the water. It was beautiful & well worth while getting up for even though I didn't think it at the time!

We climbed back on board the boat for our early morning breakfast whilst we set sail for Halong Pearl farm. I was really excited for this as I had been learning about farming pearls in Thailand & really wanted to visit one. It is very rare to find a natural pearl, so they are cultivated at a pearl farm. The oysters are purposely impregnated, put back into the sea in nets, left for a year for the pearls to produce and then they are harvest. It's a pretty big industry in Thailand and Vietnam, especially to western folk, and of course I walked out with two shiny pearls in my shopping bag. A nice sentimental present that I'm going to get made into a ring & necklace when I'm home :)

Our final activity on the boat was to make vietnamese spring rolls. Tony demonstrated and then we all took turns in making our own. It was pretty delicate yet easy to do... A filling of minced pork, onion, carrots, raw egg and spices were mixed together then a spoon full was wrapped up in damp rice paper. The trick was to roll it tight enough without ripping the paper! Once they were all finished, they were cooked for our lunch as we head back to shore, along with chicken skewers, more seafood and the standard mountain of rice!

The journey back was horrible as we played chicken with every vehicle on the road!! I hate how the vietnamese drive, they have death wishes! We had an awesome time on the boat though and it's safe to say it been one of the highlights of my trip!!!

Next stop is Hanoi round 2! ...