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Other entries in Halong Bay

Halong Bay Cruise

We were met at the hostel by a very lively young man a brought to the bus at the end of the street. Halong Bay has been described as looking like the Islands of Thailand or the Karsts of Guilin and Yangshou. There are around 1000 islets all over the bay varying in size from a few square meters to the largest, Cat Ba Island. It was a long drive to Halong City where we boarded our junk, Vietnamese Boat. This boat compared to the Yangzai river cruise was a palace, staff that wanted to serve you and always a smile. The food was amazing and lots of it. The Captain of the boat collected the passports from our tour group and headed off for the police chief to check us all in. We boarded, and the chaos began. As soon as I can get the video uploaded you will see what I mean. Picture if you can, a scene from Starship Troopers or Star Wars. When one of the large space ships gets hit by a missle and starts to crash through all the other ships, the ships around the insuing disater take evasive action and cause more crashes.

The boats that were moored just of the jetty were causing most of the problems. All of the boats tried to leave at the same time and drove, with speed into each other. It was like bumper cars with US$100,000 boats. This brought unstobable laughter to all the tourists on the boats, as this lasted for 20mins. There were some massive battle scares on the sides and ends. When the Captain eventually arrived we set sail, licking our wounds from the nemouros crashes and headed for a cave in the distants. The food was a mixture of sea food and pork for lunch that was greately appriceated as breakfast was a long time ago. The cave was the same as any other cave with impressive stalagmites and columns. There was a small fishing community that had developed by the entrance of the bay, hiring kayaks to tourists and trying to sell them Oreos, Pringles and Vodka, all of which seemed to be in date. We went kayking in the afternoon and headed for a cave about 1km around the shore line. The beaches have a layer of silt all over them which really wasn't pleasent to walk  on so we headed back to our boat. On the way we found some people from the hostel in Hanoi so joined them for a quick swim and jump off the top decks of there boat. Although we are in the tropics the water here seems to be really cold. Not helped much by the cold wind and lack of sun. We got back to out boat and headed for dinner as our boat moved off to a sheltered stretch of water surrounded by lots of other boats, for the night.

This hole area seems to be taking to the tourist drive. Halong city is a building site and you won't recognise it in a few yeas. The pollution in the water is really bad with a thin layer of oil over most of the popular parts. The next morning  we head for Cat Ba island to see another cave that only the tour company we were with could go to. The boat that tool us there vibrated lots with the old engine for the proppeler and had a lot of leaks throught the bamboo and tar structure. The cave was a distance from the jetty where the bus had dropped the group off, but the walk was nice through the mangrove swamps and fish farms that covered the area. The cave had only been discovered 10years ago by local children and was much like the fist except that there were more places that you could go pot holing to find strange insects, and the toilets had a better view.

Lunch was at a small road side resturant. The usuall fish and pork, and for some reason crinkle cut chips were served with everything. The house attached was a shack, but still had a TV stereo and DVD player. On the counter they were selling Coke, Chewing gum and snake wine, yes with real snakes.

The next part of the trip was to go and see Turtle island. We were expecting to see Turtles but it was just the shape of an island. The water was looking inviting so we all went for a swim in the middle of the bay, it was very cold and the wind was even colder, so some people stayed in longer than others. After most of us had cught mild hypoerthermia the Captain started to head towards Cat Ba Town. This is another part of the area that has been really badly effected by toursim, with kareokee bars and hotels on every corner. At least they all closed at 12 and not the early ours  but it won't belong. The community that was living in the bay had everything you could want for a fishing village. There were feul boats and and  pub out in the bay, there were alot of families living in there area and so was a large slick of oil and rubbish makeing its way slowly out to sea.

The next day we headed back on the boat for Halong City for dinner and then home to the noise and chaos of Hanoi.

Its amazing what some people can carry on the back of there bikes. From pigs and dogs heading for market both alive and not quite so to whole orange trees in pots.

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