We left Hanoi at 8am to catch a private bus to Halong city which was approximately 4 hours drive away. Some people were saying that they had been awoken at 2pm by a fire alarm in the hotel that had been set of by 20 plus Vietnamese people leaving early, I didn't hear it and being on the 5th floor wouldn't have helped if it was genuine.
The traffic in hanoi is intense I've never seen anything like it, mopeds are everywhere, when the road ahead was too busy they just used pedestrian footpath to get to the front. It's made me contemplate in getting a moped they seem very handy. There is definitely a lack of rules to driving in both Cambodia and Vietnam, traffic lights are pointless, they have them but they don't use them whatsoever.
We arrived at Halong bay and the weather was a bit misty causing low visibility of the islands from a distance. We caught a boat and immediately had lunch which was really nice. I've had some really good lunches on boats in Vietnam and it amazes me how they can put on such a good lunch with so little space. After lunch we moored the boat at an island to check out some caves that had stalactites and stalagmites inside them. The caves were nice and cool which was nice to get out of the humidity. Following the caves we got back on the boat and set off to some floating rafts in the middle of the bay to get a kayak. I hadn't done kayaking for ages but It was quite easy to get back into it. We kayaked into caves and inlets within the mountains that stretched out from the sea. Being in a kayak surrounded by the scenery was breathtaking, however some of us within the group kept soaking each other using the oar. We kayaked for approximately an hour before getting back on the boat and cruising around the bay before arriving at Cat Ba island for our accommodation.
I have the say the accommodation "appears" to be the best I've stayed in on this trip, full of mod cons that you don't really need for an overnight stay. The door room number is in an LED display and changes colour from blue to red to green, i thought it was very fancy and a nice touch...It reminded me of my Next electric fireplace back home. To add to this master class of 2 star accommodation we had a magnetic card swipe to let us into our room and a touch screen light switches beside the bed, which is pointless in the dark as by the time you've found the correct switch every light is on. All these advances in hotel technology are great until I collapsed on the double bed and wish I hadn't, i reckon the next room could hear my agony, seriously i reckon concrete must have more flexibility than this mattress. Why do they have to hard beds in Asia? I would rather get rid of the changing LED door number sign as that serves no purpose in having a decent nights sleep. Due to the high technology of the touch screen lights they decide to scrimp on plug sockets as the room doesn't have one, but instead i think they've invested the savings wisely and installed a white PVC back door with a 5 lever lock leading into the bathroom from the room.
Before dinner i went with some of the group down to the beach to watch the sunset, it was quite nice to see a proper decent sunset for a change.
Saturday morning we left the hotel to get the ferry back to Halong city, on route we stopped off at the hospital cave. The cave itself was quite fascinating as it was used during the war to attend to injured soldiers. They had built other rooms within the cave to train soldiers too and they also had a escape holes that were quite nifty.
For lunch we stopped off at a resteraunt which had an craft center attached to it. The place had been set up by a war veteran who decided that he wanted to do something for the disabled community by teaching them arts and crafts. All the pieces on display were hand made and i have to admit they were spectacular, there was embroidered pictures, paintings and jewellery. What was reassuring about the place was that you could watch the people making the crafts and also the money from the sold items was put back into the craft centre and community which I thought was a nice touch. A couple of people from the trip bought a embroidered pictures, I was very tempted but I haven't really got any wall space in my house that they would fit on and getting the picture back home would be hard.
Finally getting used to the money in Vietnam and I'm now leaving tomorrow. The money is just like Monopoly money you think you have loads as your wallet is bulging but then you work out that that you only have a few quid. You only need £31 to become a millionaire in Vietnam so "who wants to be a millionaire" would be pointless in this country.
I've really enjoyed Cambodia and Vietnam and they are both different in culture in scenery. I don't normally say this about places I've visited, apart from Australia but that is on different grounds, but I reckon I would like to come out here again in 20 years times to see how things have changed.