Day 162 (Sat 16 Dec) - Halong Bay

Up as soon as the engines fired into life.

Watched the sun burn off the early morning mist as we had breakfast. The boat moored up in a sheltered bay where most of the party jumped into two man kayaks.

With Jo in front and Sarb at the back we set off. Sarb's steering wasn't too good but after a while he got the hang of it and we were soon pootling along quite merrily.

Kayaked past towering rocks and through tunnels to reach sheltered lagoons ( [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] ). Absolutely magical place! Although we were initially concerned that Halong Bay would be teeming with tourists it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

Got back to the boat knackered.

As we had booked to stay in Halong Bay another night we had to pack our gear and transfer to another boat. Only Olivier and Jo joined us on our new boat with To our guide. Waved goodbye to our fellow travelers, especially Michael and Ute and chugged away.

We stopped around lunchtime in a beautiful, calm spot surrounded by tall rocks. Olivier and Joseph wasted no time in stripping off and diving off into the cool looking water. Jo and Sarb, having the combined buoyancy of a half brick , prudently decided to stay on the boat and offered to take photos!

We basked in the glorious sunshine as Joseph and Olivier swan off to the nearby small sandy beaches.

After awhile our aquatic friends returned and as we sat around the top deck marveling at the beauty around us, To and the crew prepared lunch. A table was set up on the top deck and very soon we were all seated round it having one of the best lunches that we've ever had. The food was excellent, the company great, the red wine was flowing and the scenery...well. Couldn't put it better than Joseph who exclaimed that it was like sitting in a National Geographic photograph.

Post lunch we traveled onto Cat Ba island. Oliver and us went for a walk with To whilst Joseph decided to have another go in a kayak.

We walked by crystal clear waters along a tarmac road until the road took a bend. At this point To explained we had two choices. We could either take the hard route or the easy route. Since the hard route seemed to entail walking up a near vertical path we decided to take the easy route.

We breezed along in the sunshine chatting away to To. To explained that monkeys could be seen hereabouts but were a little shy owing to the locals antisocial habit of trying to catch them and then eating their brains whilst still alive. Can't really fault the monkeys for keeping a low profile.

Walked through a small village situated at the bottom of a steep sided valley. As we strolled through, passing people working on fields and in their houses, we were yapped at by all manner of dogs but mainly puppies. To explained that since the Vietnamese have a penchant for dogs forming part of their cuisine (indeed To's favorite meat is dog) they have a fairly simple way to determine which mutt makes it into the family dinner pail. Basically if you have two pups the one that barks alot and is generally aggressive makes the grade as a guard dog; the one that rolls around and just looks cute and fluffy makes it into the spring rolls.

We walked back to the boat and after traveling a short while picked up Joseph. Traveled on to the part of Cat Ba island that had hotels and disembarked. Checked into our fairly comfortable hotel where Sarb played pool with To.

For dinner we headed into town. During dinner we had a really interesting discussion with To. To explained that he would love to travel to the US to try to understand why they had waged war in Vietnam. This sparked off all manner of conversations relating to the Vietnam War (or the American War, as it is properly called in Vietnam).

We went off for a few drinks round the busy harbour area and then deciding that we'd all had enough we decided to head back to the hotel. The only mode of transport at this time were riding pillion on motorbikes. Soon enough there were five of us all hurtling along in the dark towards the hotel. Quite fun!