Halong Bay is seen as one of the wonders of the world, it has more then 2000 karst islands rising from emerald waters and is designated a world heritage site.

Our bus to "Halong City" dropped us off on the side of the highway where about 5 men with motorbikes were eagerly waiting and promptly drove off. We are getting used to these "tourist traps" now so after a bit of a Gemma tantrum we finally agreed to get on the back of a bike each and they took us straight to our hotel in Bai Chay. We were not disappointed, our balcony looked out over the beautiful bay with fantastic views of some of the islands. The owner of the hotel said we could go out on his boat in the morning and so we booked a day ticket with him, ate some street food with the locals - a case of point at what you want again but the food in Vietnam is gorgeous so we are never disappointed. The beer was 16p a glass again so we made the most of that and had an early night excited about the day to come.

HALONG BAY DAY.....

The bus picked us up at 7 and we were taken to the port and shown onto our chinese "junk" boat. The boat was lovely, see pics, and our first stop was to a cave, very pretty with multi coloured lighting to show off the stalagmites and stalactites. We went in one entrance and came out the other end where the boat had driven round to pick us up. The weather was amazing and slowly boating through the beautiful islands was such an experience, we couldn't stop smiling, it was truly magnificent. We hope our pictures do it justice. We were then taken to a floating village and a local guide took us on his small row boat through some caves, one of which came out into a little bay of its own where we were surrounded by 360 degrees of limetone cliffs. The guide sang most of the way and took some pictures of us making for even more of an experience! Our ticket included lunch on the junk boat and we ate with 3 chinese men who enjoyed watching us try the local food, we did quite well - there's a pic of the food (although it's almost all gone!). After lunch we were taken to a beach on one of the islands and we had a 45 minute stop to go for a swim and have a drink - we reckon if Carlsberg made beaches this would be it, simply stunning. Overwhelmed from the experiences of the day we simply had to stop for some Bia Hoi on our way home. 4 glasses later and some good banter with 4 local men about the fact that women shouldn't smoke or sit drinking beer hoi we made our way back to the hotel. The guys we were chatting to had paid our bill! The Vietnamese seem so pleased to have tourism in their country and they always want to find out what you are here for.

An early ish night was planned as we had a bus booked to Ninh Binh the following morning. We are pleased that we only spent 2 nights here as our time in Halong was VERY special, 2 days we will remember forever because of the scenery, people and wonder of it all.