Aug 20 2009

It’s A Beautiful Life in Halong Bay, Vietnam

Halong Bay is easily one of the most beautiful places in the world. We spent much of our day standing on one side of the boat with our camera’s out taking about 500 photos each, with every picture looking amazing. Our awesome wooden boat took us through the islands of Halong Bay, which we decided resembled Pirates of the Caribbean, Vietnamese style. We totally expected to see Jack Sparrow pop up and commandeer our ship, not that we would have minded of course!

Halong bay tours - Indochina sails by you.

Indochina Sails

We headed to the caves at first, it was pretty impressive, despite the fact that it was decked out in neon coloured lights, not the most natural lighting design! The best part were the random penguin rubbish bins placed at every corner. The boat continued taking us into the islands, and we eventually stopped and jumped in for a much needed swim! After arriving at Cat Ba Island we had a late dinner before heading to a local nightclub, a teeny little room that had a DJ and a dance floor, with about 6 locals dancing around. So we joined them! After about 3 minutes we had scared them off and were the only ones dancing as most of the locals had gathered around the dance floor to stare at us and film us on their phones. So awkward, so we left! Hannah and I were really feeling the effects of far too much alcohol so we headed back to our room, laid out on the balcony with a few naughty (and disgusting) Cambodian branded cigarettes and blasted Michael Jackson’s Number Ones album for all of Cat Ba to hear!

Slightly hungover the next morning we dragged ourselves out onto the street and looked for something to eat. We were turned away by multiple restaurants, being told that there’s no food or we are not a restaurant (when it clearly was) or just being ignored completely. According to our guide some restaurants on Cat Ba won’t serve Westerners. He didn’t tell us why, and he sure as hell could have told us earlier! After finally finding somewhere that would serve us (and there are places, we just kept picking the ones that wouldn’t, purely out of bad luck) we headed to the local markets which sold such delicacies as sea horse kebabs and geckos on a stick. We took photos and headed right out the door!

Our hydrofoil ride back to the mainland was an epic failure. It didn’t show up. So we took a local bus to the other side of the island, grabbed a teeny tiny speed boat to the mainland about 1 hour from the bus station, took a local bus (complete with wobbly head ponies on the dashboard) to that station before jumping on our minivan to get back to Hanoi. Wow, effort!

To have a chance to experience Ha Long bay, please visit website: www.indochinasails.com

Source: Travel Blog

Halong Bay tags: Kayak Halong Bay, Halong Bay Kayking tours, Halong Bay tours, Halong Bay cruises, Halong Bay junks, Halong Bay travel, Vietnam holiday, Hanoi Hotels , Halong Hotels & Cruises, Halong Bay , Halong Bay Vietnam

Comments Off

Jul 27 2009

Cruising & kayaking Ha Long Bay and the island of Cat Ba

Another early morning start and the weather was still grey and overcast but at least it had stopped raining. The minibus picked us up at 7.45 and we spent the next hour doing a city tour picking up the other 10 people on the tour. Three hours later we boarded our ‘luxury’ boat which would take us to explore Ha Long bay. There were only 6 of of us on the our 16 berth boat which made things all the more personal with our tour guide ‘Suan’. Suan was a mine of information and we later found out she had studied tourism for 7 years at university.

 

Indochina Sails_ luxury cruise on Ha Long Bay

After boarding we sailed for 2 hours to LanHa Bay and disembarked. We were shown the impressive caves and the million year old stalactites and stalagmites inside the limestone mountains. Ha Long bay has over 1500 square kilometres of limestone and dolomite islets which have recently been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We both really enjoyed the caves……..is this a sign we are getting old?

From there we sailed into the next bay for kayaking. After 15 minutes we returned with wet bums, aching arms and goosebumps. Kayaking is not for us!

Dinner was sea food again, we are both feeling a little ’sea fooded’ out.

The following morning was my birthday, oh joy of joys I’m now 40 and unemployed, only kidding.

We got off of the boat at Cat Ba and then 4 of us and Suan went for a 2 hour mountain bike ride. What a wonderful way to spend my birthday. The scenery was stunning,we felt really welcome as all the locals shouted and waved as we passed through.

After the cycle ride we checked into our hotel in Cat Ba town. It is a strange place where it is very obvious the local population are desperate for the US$. It has a growing number of high rise hotels, karoke bars, water fountains and bright lights to entice the overseas visitor.

Having said that we both spent a very entertaining evening with 40 or so other drunken travellers in a karoke bar until we were thrown out. There were 2 of us celebrating birthdays and somehow we were forced into a duet. Last time I sang karoke I said never again…..this time I mean it! Steve even got photographic evidence, trouble is, I look like I’m enjoying it. I’ll never admit it though.

The island of Cat Ba is 18km so when we woke up this morning to find the sun was shining, and when my hangover had abated, we decided to hire out 2 motorbikes and explore. We have spent over 5 hours riding around today, covering every road on the island (all 3 of them!) There is very little traffic on the island which makes it very pleasurable and good practise for the week we will spend riding from Hoi An to Da lat. We have another day on Cat Ba Island tomorrow and hopefully the weather will remain good so we can go to the beach then it’s back to Hanoi to meet Mum on 28th.

For more information about Ha Long bay cruise with interesting tours at:
Indochina sails cruises – www.indochinasails.com
Kayak Halong bay – www.kayakhalongbay.com
Kayak Cat Ba – www.kayakcatba.com

Comments Off

Bad Behavior has blocked 3 access attempts in the last 7 days.