Ha Long to Tam Coc

Up early on the boat, as we'd left the blinds open in our suite and the sun came streaming through at about 5:30am. Good for Shandos who headed off to do tai chi on the upper deck at 6am - the only person on the boat to do so! I stayed in bed.

Early breakfast before boarding the tender and heading to the Bamboo Cave, where we were rowed over to a large karst cave directly through a limestone mountain and out the other side! Very peaceful and quiet here, though the water wasn't as clean - noticeable oil, sludge and garbage on the surface which is a shame.

Back to the boat where we had a bit of time for relaxing before a brief cooking class where we learned how to make fresh spring rolls. A little odd, since we'd had DIY fresh spring rolls for dinner the night before! But a bit of fun nonetheless.

Very early (10:30 ish) "brunch" which was really just lunch, then it was time to pay our bill and head back to the dock. Everything is pretty slickly organised so we only had to wait a few minutes before the bus pulled up and we headed back towards Hanoi.

We even arrived back early, around 2:30pm! Feeling at a loose end since our bus to Tam Coc wasn't due until 6pm, we headed for the ticket office anyway and dropped off our bags. Spent a couple of hours in a cool little cafe called Note Coffee, where we had a couple of iced drinks and used our laptops to while away the time.

Back to the ticket office for 6pm where we waited and waited, getting increasingly nervous. Eventually at 7pm a guy on a motorbike pulled up and asked if we were going to Tam Coc. When we said yes he made a couple of phone calls, gave us some money and said a taxi would be coming to get us shortly. And sure enough - a taxi pulled up about 10 minutes later and took us to where the bus was waiting! Weird.

It was a sleeper bus, with bunk beds fixed in a 3/4 reclining position. They were a good length and height for a Vietnamese person which isn't much good for me, but I managed since it was only a couple of hours.

Had a brief panic when we got off in Tam Coc as the guys couldn't find my bag. I got increasingly irate but eventually it was discovered in a separate empty part of the hold. At least I didn't have to bust out the Vietnamese curse words I remembered from high school!

Quite tired, we walked the hundred metres to our guesthouse and checked in. Seems nice enough. Shandos went straight to bed, while I ducked out for a quick banh mi as I was still a bit hungry.Read more