I am up at 7am to pack and get my free brekkie before jumping on a shuttle bus to Ha Long City. Once again I meet a familiar face. I met Jen on the slowboat from Laos and we had gone through that country at a similar pace though not together, then I met her again when getting the bus to Hanoi. I thought she was on her way south but she had booked onto the same tour as me with a friend of hers also called Jen and also Canadian. So a 3 and a half hour bus ride later we get to the harbour in Ha Long City and pretty swiftly we are on our junk boat. This would be our home for the night and we soon realised that we were on one of the posher tours. I had paid $88 for a 3-day tour to the bay and I was getting value for money. The room I was in was swanky and the dining area looked impressive too. But the food surpassed all expectations as we got an amazing lunch. The food remained pretty amazing for the duration of the trip and its been months since ive eaten that well over a few days. After lunch we all sat up on the top deck and stared open-mouthed at the breathtaking scenery we were drifting through. Its hard to describe in words or show in a picture how awe inspiring this area is but I assure you it is more impressive than any pictures you may have seen. Its an extremely beautiful area with thousands of massive, green encrusted limestone rock formations rising from the sea around us. The beauty of it didn't wear off over the 3 days but right then it had all of us on the boat mesmerised.
We carried on like this for a while, simply drifting past these giant rocks until we arrived at our first destination on the tour. It was a large cave on one of these islands. We landed here surrounded by other tour boats and flocked into the cave amidst a sea of tourists. The cave was pretty nice but I have seen a few already in my travels and they lose some of their appeal. There was one feature I liked about this one though and it was the ceiling. This was covered in rippling waves shaped by the water of the bay since the cave had been underwater for ages. It looked like a stone sea. After an hour here we moved on to do some kayaking. This was one thing that I was really looking forward to. I like kayaking at the best of times but to do it here in this setting had me excited. I grabbed a lifejacket and a paddle, hopped into a kayak and off I went to explore that little pocket of the bay. I loved being able to paddle around to my heart's content looking at various caves, the floating villages or just sitting peacefully in my kayak and gazing around me. By the way, people actually live in these little floating villages in Ha Long Bay. Can you imagine living in a house floating in a small bay? After about an hour I paddled back to where I had got the kayak and everyone got back on our junkboat. We got an excellent dinner which was followed by karaoke, which the Vietnamese staff took over when they realised none of us had any interest. The other option was to try your hand at fishing for shrimp but nobody had any luck. Not to worry though as 2 ladies in a small boat came along and sold a few cheap beers to us so I just sat up top and looked at the stars for a while. A pleasant way to spend an evening.
We get an early start the next day, refreshed from a good night's sleep and make for Cat Ba island. Here most of us got off as we were to spend a night here. Firstly though we go to a national park for a trek. We hiked up a small but steep mountain for an hour, and some parts were tricky enough, you almost had to climb up the rocks at points. Upon reaching the small and narrow summit we were greeted by an impressive view. There was also the option of climbing the 25m tall tower for a better one but I passed on that once some people told me it was missing steps at parts. We didn't stay long here as it was beginning to get cramped as more people arrived so we began to try and make our way down. I say try because when you have two streams of traffic on a path with room for one it makes for a slow passage. The further down we got the easier it got and the wider the path became so it wasn't too bad. Once all our tour group had come down we got on a bus to our hotels. A quick shower here (which was badly needed after climbing that mountain) followed by a quick lunch and we were off again to a place called Monkey Island. Guess where they get the name. This island is home to a small breed of monkeys that supposedly only lives there so they are pretty rare. The beach we landed on was nice and the monkeys soon came out of hiding to say hello. They aren't shy and anyone with food or drink in hand soon got their attention. We stayed here for a while (long enough to get burnt) and made our way back to Cat Ba and our hotels. Another fabulous meal and we have the evening to ourselves. Unfortunately there isn't much to do on this island so a few of us that had hung out during the day got some beers in one spot and shot the breeze for the night. An early night was on the cards after all our hard work during the day.
The last day of the tour saw us getting back on a junkboat and heading for Ha Long city again. On the boat journey we all took our last glimpses of the bay before being shuttled off to a restaurant for dinner. Afterwards we got on the bus back to Hanoi. So ends my trip to Ha Long Bay, one of the most beautiful places I am likely to visit in my life. It is an amazing sight to see firsthand and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to travel. Pictures don't do it justice, it has to be seen in the flesh so get your asses over here and visit one of the natural wonders of our world.
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