Love you Ha Long time

Having left the gripping flip flop incident behind us in Hanoi we made our way to Cat Ba Island where we would be taking a 3 day boat trip around Halong Bay. We were very excited about this - especially the prospect of some quiet sunshine time again. As usual we wanted to avoid the large backpacker booze cruise boats so had settled on a recommendation for Cat Ba Adventrues which offered a smaller and quieter trip. Admittedly we probably could have hunted around for a cheaper trip than 100 each but with promises of tasty food, beautiful sights and best of all...a private boat we paid up and met our guide Victor at the harbour. Victor swifly took us to our boat - a small wooden junk boat (like all boats here) which was indeed private with just us 2 and 3 staff onboard. With a large bedroom cabin and dining/sunbathing area on the deck it suited us nicely!

We set sail straight away passing house boats and locals fishing but thankfully not many other tourists (lots of trips leave from Halong City instead). It wasn't long before we moored at a small beach and had a swim. Victor wavws us back to boat proclaiming 'Long journey - you must be hungry!'. Indeed our stomachs were starting top rumble as Victor started filling the table with hot food. Several return trips to the back of boat produced spring rolls, fish, stir fry, vegetables and fruit which we demoslished. This was (as we hoped) a sign of things to come and Victor's first mate and chef whipped up enormous meals every day. Over 3 days we feasted on crab, oysters, muscles, a tasty white fish (not sure what type), squid and king prawns all bought fresh from the fishing villages and oyster farms we passed on our way.

The scenery of sparkling water and green mountainous islands were sight enough to make the trip worth it but one of the highlights was the daily kyaking trips Victor took us on. He took us to areas with no tourists where it so quiet all you could hear was birds, insects and monkeys. We paddled through caves to secret lagoons and spent hours lazing around or jumping in the water. Victor also took us to large caves which are a big tourist attraction although before the rush!

At night the boat was moored up in quiet spots with a few local house boats dotted in the distance so we ate our enoromous meals with a cool beer and lay on the top of the boat star-gazing. On the first night we wished we had stayed up here as unfortunately the battery broke which meant no power and no fans! A very hot night's sleep! It wasn't too much of a problem though as they found a generator to plug into the next night for a much cooler cabin.

After one of our kyaking trips Victor persuaded Sam to climb up the rock face in jump in. Victor, it seems, is quite a good climber but even he struggled scaling the rocks so Sam's attempt (although not too high) wasn't bad!

All in all we very pleased with our trip and returned to the Island rested and refreshed for our sleeper bus to Hue. In my opinion Halong Bay is one of the most beautiful places we have seen.

Liz