Halong Bay

Em and I left Hanoi and headed to Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island off Vietnam's east coast. It was a 3 hour mini bus ride to Halong Bay where we boarded a beautiful old Junk for a 6 hour cruise to Cat Ba Island. The scenery was amazing! Over three thousand lime stone island formations in the middle of the ocean surrounded by inviting green sea water. We had lunch on the boat which was a feast of seafood and local Vietnamese dishes. After lunch we dropped anchor and went kayaking. It was a lot of fun, exploring the formations and paddling through small tunnels to get into private hidden bays. Despite the rumours, Emma was actually good at kayaking. After the paddle we pulled up anchor and finished off our cruise to Cat Ba Island. We arrived at a perfect time. Dinner time! We got picked up by 2 motor bikes and arrived at the hotel to find James and Franny wating for us as well as another feast. Yep it sure is a hard life!

The next day we had planned to go to Monkey Island for a swim (which was included in our deal). But because it was only me and Em the hotel guy didn't really want to send us. We waited around for an hour before he finally organised the trip for us. What we didn't realise until later was that he had put us on a boat that a Vietnamese family had chartered for themselves. Anyway, we got to Monkey Island, had a look around which only takes 30 seconds and did some sun bathing. Before the sun had barely touched our skin the crew from the boat said it was time to leave! Strange we thought, but wasn't a problem because there really wasn't anything to do there. So we boarded the boat and headed off, in the wrong direction! After a bit of panic, thinking we were heading back to Halong Bay while all our gear was back in Cat Ba, the crew informed us that we were visiting one of the floating fishing villages. Once again we thought it a little strange since we had seen them the day before and it wasn't meant to be part of the package, but hey, we were on a boat in a beautiful environment so what did we care?!

The Vietnamese family started asking if we would have our photos taken with them, as if we were some kind of celebrities. Of course, we obliged. They then disembarked at the floating fish market and started buying heaps of live seafood. Once they had bought their supplies we finally started heading back in the right direction. After about half an hour the father of the family asked if we would join them for dinner. We told them we'd be delighted to, thinking that they would be taking their seafood back to their hotel to get it cooked. No sooner than we agreed to dine with them the crew started bringing up plate after plate of fresh tasty seafood. Giant clams, giant purple prawns, king prawns, baby squid, big squid, on and on it came. Man what generosity! What a lovely family. One of the daughters, Rosie (Huang in Vietnamese), could speak the best English so she would translate for us and her family. After dinner they took more photos of us while we headed back to the port. It was probably 7:30pm by the time we pulled into the port where the father asked us to join them in their second course - a delicious fish and rice soup. How could we refuse their hospitality? We couldnt! So the boat got turned around and we dropped anchor and ate soup with chop sticks - so cool. They kept laughing at Emma who was struggling a little but they were so sweet. They peeled her prawns for her and everything! I gotta say thank you so much "Family Lee!!!! They showed us another side to the Vietnamese people because until that point, every Vietnamese person we met had been trying to sell something to us. The Lee family wouldn't accept anything from us at all, even when we tried to give them some money towards dinner. They really made our trip to Halong Bay worthwhile.

Dinner with the Lee's

Cruising around the islands