Halong Bay

 "25/05/2013-27/05/2013"

I was up early this morning for my really amazingly exciting trip to Halong Bay.
This was going to be the highlight of my trip and it was not going to rain.

The tour guides in our minibus had exceptionally good English, and were incredibly friendly, joking all the way to Halong Bay.

I'd checked out the weather forecast and it seemed to be okay...fingers crossed.

When we arrived in the Bay it was crazy, so many buses, so many boats, so many tourguides.
I did think that it would spoil the pictouresque nature of the bay, but very quickly we found our boat, and were pulling away from the harbour to much quieter surroundings with hardly a boat on the horizon.

First stop was to some caves, which provided some welcome respite after our enormous lunch.
Later in the afternoon we stopped off for some kayaking.  Having kayaked in crocodile infested waters in the Northern territory, Australia I was sensing this might be slightly less nervewracking.
It was still pretty tough-going, kayaking isn't that idealistic thing you might picture on a Sunday afternoon, it's really hard work, and the girl I was paired up with struggled with the concept of which way to paddle (and the language barrier) so I had to work twice as hard.

After a good amount of exercise we made our way back to the boat for sunset.
It was now that I had a chance to get my perfect sunset picture, and oh yes! It was a beautiful beautiful one.  I probably had enough, with the different island formations to fill a whole new album.

I love sunsets on water, there's something about it that is just so magical and mystical.

I'm glad I got all my pictures in today, because the next day was a lot more overcast.

I had to change boats and guides for a visit to Catba island, the only inhabited island, and also a trip to monkey island.  I wasn't expecting this, but the "hike" was worth it for the views and was a nice break in the scenery.  I wasn't a fan of the monkey part, monkeys are rather devious, vicious creatures and I kept my camera very close to my person.

The evening was filled with karaoke, and was a lot of fun, before we enjoyed further rock formations en route back to Hanoi and then the long flight back via Bangkok to home.

Halong Bay was such a perfect end to my South East adventures, and although I'm sad to be going home no doubt I'll be hitting the road soon.