Hanoi:
After our long sleep, we woke up refreshed ready to explore.
Brett (Jamie's brother) had told us about this place called Tamarind. It's all vego food and it's the BEST place in the whole world! Jamie had the crispy mushrooms that Brett had suggested. What a treat, they were great.
Candice had the pancakes and enjoyed every last bit. We just can't get enough of the food it's wonderful.
We then went for a walk to burn off our food. It's amazing how different each town/city is.
We stayed for another night before we booked our tour to Ha Long Bay.
Ha Long Bay:
We were picked up from our hotel and drove to Ha Long City where we boarded the boat to go out to the islands. It was an adventure in it's own just boarding the boats, as we had to climb over numerous others to get to ours at the back; with our luggage! When we boarded, we had lunch waiting for the other boats to set sail so we could head off after them. It was really hot on the boat as they like to conserve the electricity and not let the fans run. After lunch we backed out of the harbour about 10meters and then stopped for another 1/2hr because the captain decided that he needed to have lunch, after we had finished eating. Why he didn't eat when we were eating is beyond us.
Anyways, we finally left the harbour and were on our way, we went up on the top deck (sun baking deck) and enjoyed the breeze and views.
It was absolutely amazing seeing all these limestone rocks with trees and grass growing out of it. It's weird how something even grows out of them.
We went to look through this cave close by and we were supposed to have kept our ticket to go in to see it. However Jamie ended up loosing his somehow...finally it wasn't me loosing something for once!
Luckily this nice little old Malaysian lady gave her ticket to him as she was too tired to walk up the stairs. We were all sweating up a storm as there was no breeze. When we reached the top of the stairs and ventured down into the cave, a nice cool breeze swept through us and everyone sighed a bit of relief from the heat. The cave was quite wet and gloomy inside, however it was really nice to see.
We then got back on the boat and anchored in between Ha Long City and Cat Ba island, surrounded by the wonderful limestone islands.
Our terrible tour guide Nam said we could then jump off the top deck of the boat and go swimming. Being on a boat with the majority being male, jumping off the side of the boat was a great ending to the day. One Aussie guy from Melbourne, Cam made an effort to make sure he made the biggest bomb dive. The boat was three stories and the top level was about 7 meters off the water so it was a scary drop to the water.
That night we all stayed up drinking talking about home and watching the shooting stars from the top deck. All the Canadian frat boys on the boat stayed up to wish one of the guys a happy birthday at 12am, so we all stayed up as well.
The next day we got off the boat to go to the hotel and check in. Others went trekking, but it was too hot and we weren't in the mood...or just plain lazy. So we caught a bus into Cat Ba to our hotel with a few of the Canadian guys to share the taxi fee.
We got there and had a look around, it's quite a nice spot with lots of fishing boats out in the harbour.
That afternoon we caught another boat to go out to the floating houses/fishing stalls, where we went kayaking around the islands and went to a few secluded beaches.
That night we all had dinner and headed down to the harbour where all the locals go for Beer Hoi (Local Beer). There were about 20 stalls set up selling drinks, sugar cane juice and of corse our beer.
We were in a group of about 12 and all of us were willing to drink a fair bit but no one would bring the price down. The Pomy guy Chris in our group was the official barterer and got us a sweet deal.
The beer is only brewed for one day and is very easy to drink. It was so cheap at US$1 for a litre. Candice had 4 glasses, so it's a sure sign it a nice drop!
We had a 12am curfew and all headed back to "go to bed" however the aussies and poms weren't finished drinking. So we headed back to our room to devour some local Hanoi run that Aussie Cam had bought with him. As you can imagine it was like engine fuel and with Jamie's debating ways when he has had a few, politics was the topic.
The next day there were a few sore heads (Jamie's especially) and we had to go on a bus trip to the harbour then catch the boat to Ha Long City to catch another bus back to Hanoi. So you could imagine Jamie's poor state.
The boat trip back was a great way to top off our tour, as we went through and around the islands at a slow pace. So slowly that we were rammed by one of the boats about three times.
We got back to Hanoi and waited a few hours before train ride to Sapa.
