Yesterday we set out for our very expensive 3 day trip to Halong Bay. We were up at 6.30 (i still cant get on board with getting dragged out of bed this early in holiday). We then got a 3.5 hour bus to the harbour at Halong. We had a stop half way at a very posh shop that sold ceramics, silks and other crafts - at that point we could tell that this was going to be more upmarket than we've been used to as the normal toilet breaks are in run down, smelly places selling nothing but noodles.
Our tour guide for the three days is a guy called Tuan, which means handsome in Vietnamese (apparently) so we've all been calling him handsome all trip as its easier to pronounce. His introduction was a little out of the ordinary in that after telling us his name he told us he was single and that this is unusual for a 25 year old in Vietnam, but he didn't want to get married because his married brother told him its like 'being in a bird cage and your wife keeps the key!' He then went on to explain how a lot of Vietnamese men have both wives and girlfriends, because as he put it 'you have rice every day, but sometimes you want some noodles'! He then told us his parents were making him get married in 3 weeks, lucky lucky girl!
We got a little boat out to our 3 floor traditional Junk boat which we would be spending the night on with 12 other people. The boat was really nice, we all had ensuite rooms with a big double glazed window looking out onto Halong Bay, and also proper front doors?! When we got on the boat the restaurant was set out like a wedding with covered chairs and ribbons on. We sat with 6 other people who proved to be pretty amusing - a quiet English couple, a French guy, a manchunian called Dave and an Aussie couple called Matt and Eva.
The lunch was, shall we say a mixed success. First course was vegetable soup which looked lovely, however, when we put our spoons in we realised the soup had a (and there's no other way to put this) flem-like consistency. The girls all pushed their soup aside whilst the guys all trooped on and ate theirs. We then had a myriad of food put on the table in Front of us over the next half hour, consisting of: stuffed crab (was gross), big prawns in their shells, fish, fried squid (delicious), seafood spring rolls, stir fried chicken and rice. I felt pretty sorry for the English girl who had told the tour guide she didn't eat seafood, she basically ate rice and soy!
After the massive lunch we laid on the top deck for about 10 mins before being told we were going kayaking. Everyone went to get themselves sorted and we pretty much got on the little boat with nothing - which would gave been fine, if we were actually going kayaking. However, what we did was go on a boat through Halong Bay to see some huge caves full of Stalactites and stalagmites which was pretty amazing, however, half of us hadn't brought out cameras and Dave didn't even bring shoes!
We told Handsome this and he said we'd go back to the boat and get them before we went to the next place, again not kayaking but going to a viewpoint, where he said there was 'no point going without our cameras'. He then proceeded to go straight there - WITHOUT OUR CAMERAS (or in some cases, shoes!). So for your info, I will be stealing other peoples pictures and Internet photos of this part of the trip.
We then actually went kayaking. Before we got in the kayak Robin said I didn't need to paddle as he'd 'show me how it was done', given I've been the member of a yacht clib since i was little i had a pretty good idea how to row! So i ignored this comment and we got in and started paddling to the right to take us out of the bay, oh no hang on, that's not correct, I paddled on one side to turn us out of the bay but to my despair we were heading straight for a docked boat, I asked if robin who was behind me if he was paddling to the right and he said yes, but when I turned around he was happily paddling both paddles straight ahead - I explained the concept of rowing to him just as we hit the boat!
After kayaking we spent half an hour motoring around the bay in the dark, which is otherwise called 'our tour guides can't remember where they parked the boat'!
After a hot shower we headed for dinner on board which was more of the same type of food but this time with wine - yay! We were first all 'treated' to a glass of Vuetnamese De Lat, which was something akin to red wine vinegar (although this time not fishy which was an improvement). Fortunately they also had some drinkable wine and myself and Eva polished a bottle of off. after which the crew refused to open another bottle so we had to go back to the De Lat.
My deck cards finally came in useful (Robin hates playing cards with me) and so 6 of us got into a game of 's***head' which was half made up as no one could remember the rules and it became highly complex when the rules changed every round, which was worse fir Jens the German guy who joined us after the first confusing test run (he subsequently lost 90% of the rounds). Whilst we sat up drinking and playing cards the rest of the group went to bed. Handsome and the 3 other crew sat writing out Handsomes wedding invitations!
At 1am we decided to have a crack at fishing off the back of the boat (this was supposed to be part of the trip but Handsome was busy!) - we weren't very successful, which is strange because you'd think fish would like the strawberry sweets we were using as bait.
Today we were awoken at 7am by the sound of the engine, and headed up for breakfast. After this handsome took us to a floating pearl farm which was really interesting. Heres the science bit - Instead if waiting 3 years for the pearls to form naturally (only 30% produce pearls and only 10% produce round pearls) they create a small 'pearl' using the outside of the shell and insert it into the oyster (using what appears to be dental equipment) and the pearl 'bleeds' over this pearl to form a pearl in only 18 months.
After this we said goodbye to half our group who were doing the two day tour and headed off on another boat to Cat Ba island. We first went to see monkeys in a little bay (when i upload my pics you will see one enjoying a can of Fanta!) and climbed to the top of a precarious rocky cliff top to take some pictures. We then headed back to the boat for another bizarre lunch consisting of lots of deep fryed meat. One particularly grim item was a 'chicken ball' which when i cut past the batter was the rankest piece of chicken meat ever - grey, bones, fat, bluuurgh!
We then went to Cat Ba for an hour cycle ride to a little village that live at the bottom of the mountains. I haven't been in a bike in years and really enjoyed this. When we got to the village we had a short trek to the 'Dark Cave' (and that was all it was) and then got back on the bikes.
We cycled back to the boat and headed around to the town to check in to our hotel. We had dinner at the hotel with the group and then headed out with Dave snd Jens to discover the MOST AMAZING BAR EVER! It was called Happy Feet and myself and Dave got a 40 minute foot and leg massage for $3 whilst enjoying a drink and chatting like old women. I then decided to splash out another $3 on a head, shoulder and back massage that I had done at the table listening to the lads talk about football. I really think we need to adopt this massage / drinking combination at home, if any one wants to put up cash for this venture let me know!
We headed back to out hotel about midnight.

The next day was another very early start. We got on the little boat at the port to take us back to the junk boat, this 2 minute trip turned out to be rather amusing and longer than expected. We were all sitting in the boat with the engine on in neutral when it started to drift towards another boat, the captain had inexplicable got off and handsome jumped off to grab the rope and pull the boat in, however the rope was neither tied to the boat nor the shore and so a tug of war ensued with handsome holding one end on the dock and someone on the boar holding the other end! We basiclly hit the boat we were heading towards and got so far away handsome couldnt jump back on the boat! So basically there were 12 tourists about to drift off into the sea with no captain or tour guide. But Dave saved the day (although not sure the captain would agree) he played around with a few leavers until the engine stopped...in a huge puff of smoke! When the captain got back on the engine wouldn't start, he talked to the tour guide in Vietnamese (I'm sure had a few choice words about Dave!) we then had to paddle out to the junk boat, which wasn't easy given the size of the boat we were on!

Back on the junk boat we watched one of the crew do some vegetable carving (I an sad and was very excited about this!), i will be massacring lots of carrots and tomatoes when i get home. We then went for yet another lunch where there was lots of food I couldn't eat and headed back to Hanoi on a 5 hour bus trip.