We took the bus (eventually) to Halong bay which took about 4 hours of faffing about around the city, then a stop along the way and haring down the roads with what can only be described as “hairy” overtaking manoeuvres! Got to the marina and waited a bit, waited some more and after waiting some more, boarded our boat to cruise around in. Everything was delayed due to the hurricane and that all the boats had left the bay!
We boarded Discovery 02 and had some lunch before setting sail across the bay. We stopped at some caves for a nosey about for a while before getting back on to the boat. Now that sounds easy, but when there are hundreds of tourist boats about, it means a fair bit of clambering about from boat to boat to get to the desired place!
Halong bay was stunning, other-worldly, but after a while it started to look the same. We cruised some more then took a kayak around a portion of the bay, after taking it from a floating area of houses and fish market etc. No problems kayaking now between the wife and I so we enjoyed our brief trip. A bit of jumping in the water followed, with a real tricky ascent out of the water up the boat's ladder!
We had dinner on board and then relaxed before heading to bed in our cabin, clean and nice enough, but without air conditioning it was unbearably hot, so not much sleep was had.
The following day we cruised to Cat Ba island, changed boats and pretty much cruised back to shore, all the time being amazed by the scenery. Any more than the 2 day, 1 night trip might have been too much. On the way back we watched the Top Gear Vietnam Special to see what we'd seen! We got back to our hotel and found there was no room for us, so we got on the back of motorbikes and headed to a sisters hotel or something nearer the centre and stayed there. Was a bit of an inconvenience and typical of Vietnam. I watched United lose in the Charity Shield :(
Overall, I would have mixed feelings about Vietnam. It's a beautiful country with many wonderful places to see. Some oppressive history and still can be oppressive to some of the southern old styled republicans, but nowhere near as bad as China! After a while, whether it's the food, the inevitable sickness, the people or what, it makes you want to go home! You realise the comforts of home, how the people are and so on. Don't get me wrong, the Vietnamese people as a whole are a friendly bunch, but they still are asian and have a lot of their gross habits. It did seem the further north you got, the worse it got. We definitely preferred the south. I think if we'd have found reasonably cheap flights home, we'd have gone!
No comments:
Post a Comment