Early start this morning as the trip started at 730am, breakfast in this hotel is really good actually, although very similar options David was glad to see cornflakes on the menu, the closest he is going to get to branflakes!
The tour guide, Thank, was great, his knowledge and his English was perfect. The group of about 20 were mainly German, we couldn’t really interact with anyone for most of the tour because all the Germans got together and spoke in German, there was an older Korean couple but only the man spoke English so again it was difficult.
The first attraction was the floating fishing villages nestled amongst the hills in the shelter from the main ocean, the guys on these makeshift villages stay here throughout their whole lives, they have small nets hung on barrels and wood where they put all their catch to grow, this means that in the low season they can sell their stock. Each property also has a dog which initially seemed strange because their is nowhere for them to run but hey keep them to guard the fish from the kites. Apparently early in the morning all the dogs go swimming in the sea together for exercise.
The next stop was the fish farm and kayaking, all the kayaks were 2 man. I was at the front with the camera, David at the back. Some people really couldn’t kayak and kept zigzagging and crashing into people so we just hung back at the back to avoid the crashing. It got quite warm as we kayaked, I ended up taking my coat off and trying to suspend is wrapped up between. My knees off the bottom of the coat, it didn’t really work and it got soaked.
We went through a few caves and tried to spot some of the langur monkey, we didn’t see any however it’s not really surprising because they are critically endangered with only 61 left in the wild!
After kayaking we visited the fish farm at the kayak dock, I wasn’t keen to do this, some of the fish here weigh up to 80kg and are kept in 4m deep nets suspended from the Surface for tourism only, you couldn’t even see most of them so the whole thing was useless in my eyes.
Next stop was a secluded part of Halong Bay for swimming and lunch, not ,any people went in because it was still cold, David dived from the top of the deck once but didn’t go in after that, I think the temperature was a bit of a shock.
Lunch was good actually, there were lots of options, usual rice and veg again and they cooked black snapper for people, we stuck to the vegetarian options. The guy sat next to us had brought a lunch box with him and as the staff cleared up he went round all the table and took the leftovers for his meal later on. It was a bit embarrassing the extent he went of going round all the tables, rearranging the box to fit more in, but it’s also very savvy way to travel, and reduced waste I guess.
The morning of the trip was very cloudy, and bitterly cold when on the boat, but in the afternoon it was really sunny and warm- finally!!!
Next stop in the afternoon was monkey island, we had to get a water taxi from the boat to the beach, the sands were golden and the sun strong- this is what we’ve been waiting for!!! When we got to the beach there were lots of monkeys,generally stealing everything they could from tourists not paying attention, we saw a 2L water bottle go, someone’s rucksack, and a can of beer which the monkey ran down the beach with before downing the can- pretty funny! Some tourists in the cafe were sat feeding them, pretty stupid really because the monkeys were getting more and more persistent with them, and that’s why they are as naughty as they are!! The rangers eventually went over to tell them to stop.
There was a viewpoint on the island, a 20minute trek up the rock face, I didn’t think it was going to be as hard as it was, but it was actually quite difficult. Here were makeshift planks to cross and huge boulders to clamber across I got almost to the top but turned back just before because I didn’t feel safe, David went up a little higher. I sat on the beach enjoying the views until he got back down.
After this stop we went back to the harbour and got a bus back to cat ba town.
That evening we went out for a couple of drinks, we ate at Mona’s restaurant where they had live music playing, food was ok, but they forgot David’s meal so we ate separately. Instead of drinking beer we went onto the spirits for a change. After listening to the guitarist and playing cards we went for one more drink at the oasis bar before bed, well we intended to have one more drink but instead we spent every penny we had on us on vodka and rum, David went up to the bar and said to the barman we have 50dong left, what can we have? The barman said it’s fine have the same again. We got talking to a girl and her family from Leeds, she was teaching English over here and they were just visiting.
We ended up buying 2more rounds of drinks on the card with not a single penny of cash left because the only ATM in the town had been out of service all day. The measures here are 60ml as a single shot so we were pretty drunk, I ended up dancing on the tables with the girl from Leeds to spice girls- (standard!)and David was doing his usual one-two step.
It wasn’t late when we got back in, probably 1am, on the way back up the hill to our hotel David wanted to go into the rose club, a new nightclub, we walked in and there was no-one so we left, and probably a very good job we did!
South East Asia 2019 