Halong Bay - 26th - 28th May. 

We had a brilliant time in Halong Bay and will upload all the photos as soon as possible!! 

Magnificant Halong Bay is undoubtedly the natural wonder of Vietnam.  It is home to 3000 incredible islands rising from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin.     

Halong translates as 'where the dragon descends into the sea.'  Legend has it that the islands of Halong Bay were created by a great dragon that lived in the mountains.  As it ran towards the coast, its flailing tail gouged out valleys and crevasses, as it plunged into the sea, the area dug up by the tail filled with water, leaving only the high land visible. 

We got picked up at 7.45am for the 4 hr trip to Halong City, once there we boarded our gorgeous boat that was to be our home for the next 20 hours.  

It was a beautiful boat and we had a nice room with a window that opened out with views of the bay that were incredible. 

All the food and entrance fees and accomodation were included in our ticket and well worth it.... we boarded the boat and then had a fantastic lunhc.  We then visited a cave and went kayaking for an hour around the islands that was great.  We have a video of this, so will try to upload it.  From there we went to another island and had some time of the beach, followed by swimming and jumping off the boat from the top deck!!

We watched the sunset and then spent a wuiet night on the boat surrounded by the islands which was fantastic, wish we could've had another night on the boat really. 

The following morning we docked on Cat Ba Island and then to my horror went for an hour and a half trek through Cat Ba National Park.  I nearly died, but the views from the top where pretty amazing.  From there we went to the see the hospital cave where the vietnamese housed 150 casulties during the war, unbeknown to the americans. 

Thankfully after this we went to Cat Ba town and checked into a hotel for a night (again included in the initial price we paid of 25 pounds).  that afternoon we got on another boat and went to Monkey Island, we spent a while here and it was great, unfortunately no monkeys made an appearance! 

I forgot to mention that the group we with with where all really nice.  There were 2 lads from israel, there names were mojo and shay and 3 english lads, 2 rich's and a ben.  That night we all went out with our tour guide called Hoa.  It was fab he taught us a few vietnamese saying including, "oi troi oi' ehich means oh my god.  the vietnamese think its hilarious when they here westerners say it. 

we started the night off on beer hoi, which is that 10p fresh draught beer again then went onto a local night club, the whole thing was pretty hilarious, especially when you see the vietnamese trying to dance!! 

the next day we had to head back to the harbour to baord the boat back through the islands to halong city. 

again will upload the photos later. 

we will update once we get to laos.  bye for now.  love shell and simon xxxx