Day 29

We are collected by a nice clean modern transit minibus and along with some other people we're whisked off to Halong Bay.... It's around 4 hrs north east of Hanoi so it's not going to be any warmer....

We are both looking forward to this junk boat trip so when we cross a huge suspension bridge close to Halong we're really excited to see the huge limestone karsts jutting out of the south China sea to our right.

It looks stunning, even from the minibus and the karsts are still miles away, but visible due to there immense size....

We board the boat ( Dragon Pearl 1 ) and we are happy... It's lived up to expectation.... It's clean and tidy and good quality... Both of which are becoming a rarity in Asia.... We have two massive windows in our room and you can see out from the bed.... It's certainly going to be a room with a few....

The boats, by law have to be painted white.... Its a real shame as there old, and suit the dark mahogany colour they once were.....

Dark Mahoney is everywhere inside the boat and gives the boat a nice feeling of grandeur and warmth.... It's polished to within an inch of its life and everything looks in good order...

It has been decided by the Vietnamese government that the outside of this junks boats be painted white to make them look more like "cruse ships" in truth it just makes them look cheap.....

It's not long before we are on our way and we find ourselves sat up on deck around a table.... We get served warm orange juice.... Its 100% natural, but it's been heated.... If you can remove your expectation of having it cold and just enjoy it for what it is then it's actually very nice... And it keeps your hands warm..... Bonus !!

This trip is sold as a junk boat cruise around Halong Bay and living up to a cruise reputation we are soon being served food....

6 courses later and now comes desert.... And this is only lunch.... What on earth are they going to produce in the kitchen for dinner....

The food is largely sea food, and on working out by coarse 3 a cold sweat creeps over me.... I'm not really a fan of shellfish as I don't like eating anything with sand in it and my experiences so far is that sand and shellfish go hand in hand and secondly I don't really like anything with bones in.... So that puts fish way back on the things Simon likes to eat list too.....

We'd been asked about dietary requirements whilst booking the trip months ago and I'd stated "No Dietary Requirements" I assume that the chef had interpreted this as "likes" seafood so from the start to the end of the cruse it was seafood all the way...., and it was absolutely lovely..... I are things from the deep blue sea even David Attenborough would not be able to identify and they were all fantastic...

The Indochina junk boat company sends its boats further away from "Halong Bay" itself, travelling through hundreds of this huge tree covered limestone karsts to an area within the bay called Bai Tu Long Bay and this is where we are heading... It's far away from the main Halong Bay you rest areas so has a natural, clean, uncrowded feel to it.... After effortlessly travelling for three or four hours, we arrive at an area with Bai Tu Long Bay called Cal La Island.... This is where we will be spending both nights whilst on the boat.. The crew drop anchor and dinner is served..... It's another fantastic selection of sea food served over many courses and again, it's great !

It gets dark around 6.30pm so we both sit with our legs dangling over the front of the boat using bamboo fishing rods..... There's a powerful light facing down onto the water that lights up a 30ft area of water well and you can see all manner of different small fish in the water including a fish the crew called a flying fish which actually has wings and can be seen skimming across the water. There's also the occasional larger fish in small schools that making an appearance..... Try as we might we catch nothing.... And we learn that the lure on the hook and the light on the water are both to attract squid....

We retire to our room... Its very luxurious and we watch a film before going to sleep....

http://www.indochina-junk.com/?page_id=2226

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hạ_Long_Bay