We were up early this morning for our trip to Halong Bay!
After a quick breakfast, we grabbed our stuff from our room and waited to be picked up from reception. The bus arrived about 8.15 and we started the 4 hour drive to Halong. Both of us managed to sleep for the first half before the rest stop. After another hour and a half drive we finally arrived just after midday. We were so lucky with the weather, as it has been cold and cloudy since we arrived in Vietnam, but today was lovely and sunny! We headed straight for the boat where they sat us down for lunch. This involved plates of food being bought to each table for you to help yourself. It was mostly seafood but I had asked for chicken instead before, which meant I did quite enjoy it as there was also rice, spring rolls and egg to choose from as well. We sailed along into the bay whilst eating lunch, being able to watch as the mountains that come out of the water passed us by.
After lunch we headed up to the sundeck for a better view. It was really stunning and I'm so glad we made the effort to do this trip.
We made our first stop where we were able to kayak out around the bay, in through tunnels to see parts of it the boat can't reach. This was lovely, but hard work weaving in and out of others in kayaks and the row boats the locals use to sail tourists around in.
After this we headed back onto the boat and onto or next stop, which was a cave set inside one of the mountains in the bay. This was amazing and possibly one of the best caves I have seen so far! It was huge inside and the rock formations were incredible! We walked right through and out to the other side where the boat was waiting to take us back to the main harbour. We arrived back and got on the bus at about half 4 to make the journey back to Hanoi. It was a shame we couldn't have spent longer on the boat, but it will be nice to get back and make the most of our last night in Hanoi before leaving tomorrow evening.