Halong Bay

We left Hanoi on Tuesday morning and headed through the country to Halong Bay. We got to see aspects of rich and poor which included massive tech shops to small rice farmers. I can't remember the exact number, but I think it was around 200 million tons of rice produced by the Vietnamese each year (80% of that is for Vietnam.

We stopped at a rest stop and we got to witness traditional weaving as well as go to the 'happy room', this is what the Vietnamese call a toilet.

When we arrived at Halong Bay after 4 hours of driving, we were ready to jump on the boat. We split up into two groups (each group had a desperate boat) and sailed off into the bay. Our room, the food, and the weather were amazing (this was also the first time we had seen blue sky).

After lunch, we hopped on the smaller boats and sailed to Ti Top island where some of us walked which seemed like 1000 steps to the top for an amazing view. When we returned to the bottom we jumped into the water for a swim. The beach was man made with sand being pumped in. It also had a dedicated swim area and no sharks. We also visited some amazing caves which travelled for 100s of metres underground.

We returned to the boat for a shower, dinner and some squid fishing. We also learnt how to make traditional springrolls, however, none of ours were as good as the chef. I must forget to tell you about the sales women in her row boat....... unfortunately, Ethyn bought something off her so she wouldn't leave us alone. She sold jewellery, chips, drinks, smokes, you name it. Our tour guide thought she would make about US$100 per day which is huge in Vietnam.

After our five course dinner, we headed upstairs and sat in the loungers as well as played a few games. For any of you that know me well enough know that I love the table challenge, so we piled that one out. Only Alice Murray was able to do it. We also pulled out the school Haka which was head by the other SOHS boat on the bay.

The next morning (Wednesday 18th), we woke up at 6.15am to partake in a Tai Chi class. After this, we had breakfast before heading to a sea cave where we got two choices, a traditional rowboat or kayak ourselves. We paddles through the cave and into the pool of water on the other side. It was such a beautiful place and we were even lucky enough to see some monkeys.

We sailed back to port and unfortunately had to disembark. All of us agreed that another night would be amazing and will take this into consideration for the next trip.

We travelled back to Hanoi stopping at the Pearl factory where we saw how Pearls were grown and the seed planted in the Pearl. These pearls take anywhere between 2-5 years to develop.

We arrived at Hoi An airport at about 3.30pm which gave us plenty of time to grab a bite to eat and board our flight to Danang. Getting through security for a domestic flight was tight (we even had to take our shoes off so they could scan them). I am writing this section from 8229m travelling at 852km/h and we only have 146km to go to reach Danang. I can see 100's of little lights below me which I assume are fishing boats.

We landed in Danang and took the bus to Hoi An where we settled into our hotel and went for a bit of a swim.

There are far to many awesome photos to post and it was difficult to choose. The internet is also too slow so I will post as many photos as I can tomorrow when I am closer to the WiFi.

Tomorrow we are off to the site of the My Lai massacre.