Halong Bay

First entry for a while as I haven’t been doing very much in the way of travel recently. Today a day trip to Halong Bay. Got up for a 2.5 hour bus trip at 8.30. On the way a stop at a pearl making centre with lots of jewellery. So many of these day trips have a completely inappropriate stop at some kind of store. No back packer is going to be interested yet they persist. Anyway after that we continued the bus journey to the bay and then boarded a boat. About 30 of us on board I would say. Had lunch on the boat and admired the view. First stop was to one of the islands where you could either swim or climb to the top for the panorama. Did the latter as the beach was a little crowded and fancied a break from any form of exercise. Although the 400 steps to the top would probably count as exercise anyway! After that another trip in the boat to another island where the options were kayaking, boat or speedboat. Opted for the speed boat. Got to pretty fast round the islands. And then visit to yet another cave. Caves are great and Vietnam certainly has its share. Met some lovely fellow travellers zac & Gina from NZ, Morgan from Cambridge and Gloria & Skykar from Ireland & NY.もっと詳しく