Ha Long Bay

Hahn had us up early this morning for the 4.5 hour drive to Ha Long Bay. Up so early that we had to wait for the bread to arrive for breakfast (on a moped) and ended up leaving 30mins late. The along the way we stopped at a cafe where they had huge jars of liquor with whole cobra snakes in and one allegedly had a Bear's 'best bit's' in it – very strange.
Later we stopped at a roadside stop to have mini pineapples which you ate like a lolly, fresh coconut milk straight from the nut, and also fresh groundnuts (peanuts); so fresh you had to brush the soil off the shell. There were about 15 stalls doing the same along the road and as soon as the bus slowed loads of women came running out of the stall's each vying for business, for some reason we stopped at the one with the very pretty young lady whom Hanh seemed to be on very good terms with, hmm. Eventually we got to the port and boarded the Junk that was going to take us out into the bay. I had no idea what to expect for this part of the trip and it was amazing. We had our own boat 3* boat no less individual A/C rooms all ensuite and the food was fantastic; although the pool (sea) was damn cold when I jumped in off the boat later.
first we were allocated our rooms and I got the only room on the middle deck everyone else was down below, whats more it was exactly 5 paces from my room to the bar; result! I even had a balcony. Lunch was served as we cruised out into the bay by white suited staff and it was all a big contrast from the previous 24hours.
Ha Long Bay is made up of hundreds of islands of limestone rock which tower up out of the water a coupe of hundred feet. some are just small pinnacles whist others are larger and have vegetation on them. The views were awesome – if you discounted the other god knows how many other junks doing the same thing. Small floating 'villages' appeared and disappeared around each corner as we sailed through the rock formations. Eventually we docked on one of the islands to do a cave visit. These caves were proper show caves and we followed the lines of tourists climbing the steps up to the entrance. The caves were only relatively discovered and had been lit up with various coloured lights to give some amazing effects. They were much bigger than the last lot we had visited and well worth seeing, along with Hanh's running commentary. Back on the boat we sailed around the corner to a spot where the crew brought along side a load of kayaks and we paddled around another island to find a water tunnel through to an enclosed lagoon. The lagoon was huge about, twice the size of the lake at Middlewood. In one corner there were lots of boats and kayaks gathered near a rock which stood out from the edge. On the flat top was a monkey and people were throwing food up to it. I couldn't work out if this was a 'good luck thing' or just something people did though. Back at the boat we got back just in time to get some sunset photos over the surrounding islands and then take the plunge off the side of the boat into the water. Only myself and Hayley managed it – it was freezing, and I think thats why everyone else chickened out. The evening meal was again excellent with a few pre-dinner cocktails beforehand. Hanh gave us a late start of a 9:30 breakfast (woohoo!) and we had that then slowly motored back to the port. This was a amazing way to almost end the trip and very relaxing.