We had a bit of a wander around Halong town but it really is just a bit of a ghost town. we made plans to go to Cat Ba Island from there the next day and then went out for dinner. While out for dinner, the old lady running the place kept trying to get us to sit with some Vietnamese guys. She told us that since is was Tët, they would like to celebrate with us. Despite the offer of free beer and the assurance from the lady that these were nice boys, we declined. We took a taxi to a night market, hoping to find some warm clothes for our trip to Sapa but, unfortunately, there was nothing much worth buying there.
The next day we made the trip to Cat Ba Island. The ferry ride only took one short hour and we were gifted with some of the most beautiful scenery in the world as we sailed through Halong Bay. The hour long bus drive from the pier to Cat Ba town was not so pleasant. The bus was crammed to the gunnels with everyone who didn't have their own mode of transport. Ah well, swings and roundabouts.
We went for a beautiful dinner at a place called Green Mango on the waterfront and then booked some things to do while in Cat Ba.
The following morning we were collected at our accomodation for our kayaking boat trip. The weather was unfortunately a bit dreich, or miserable for all you non-scots. We were taken through Halong bay, which is just crazy stunning - even when the weather is pants, to where we would do our kayaking. The kayaks were tandems and so I ended up sharing with a guy from Liverpool. We were only allowed one hour to explore the caves and area around where we were. The guy with me was the laziest person on the planet, I ended up doing the majority of the paddling while he just sat back and looked pretty. Maybe he thought I couldn't notice since he was sitting in the back. After kayaking, we were given a lovely lunch on board the boat and then taken to where we could go swimming or jump from the roof of the boat. The three of us were already shivering and so decided just to stay put. Some crazy people, or drunk people, were going for it though. As much as they tried to convince us that it "wasn't that cold", their blue lips and chittering were giving the game away. The last stop was monkey island where we were dropped at the beach and given a short time to hopefully catch a glimpse of the cheeky residents.
We had hot showers, dinner and two(!) hot chocolates at our own accomodation that night was we were too cold from our day on the water to venture any further.
We spent the next day hiking in the National park. There was one French/Canadian lady who was falling behind right from the off-start and by the time we were at the bits where we were needing to do a lot of scrambling, she was miles behind. It wasn't a particularly difficult trek, about 10km through the hills and then a further 5km on the flat, but I really enjoyed it. I think it was because some of the trek was scrambling which is much more fun than just walking. We stopped after 10km to have lunch in a small village and the food provided was much much better than most of the stuff I've eaten at restaurants in Vietnam.
Every time that we stopped for a break, and by that I mean, wait for French/Canadian to catch up, our guide was checking us all for leeches. We had put on insect repellant in the morning which is supposed to be good for leeches, this meant that we only found one between us during the whole trek. Kay was the unlucky host to the leech but we found it quick enough that it wasn't too difficult to remove.
We went for dinner and a cocktail that night and also booked our bus back to Hanoi for the following morning. I had found a hairdressers in Hanoi which had amazing reviews and so was looking forward to getting my mop coloured and cut. The multicoloured look wasn't really doing it for me.
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