Day 30: Cruising Halong Bay

Claire: One month into our trip and we finally see the sea!!! Albeit it's cold and rainy but Halong Bay and the thousands of limestone islands have been on my wanderlust list forever.

Off the coast of Vietnam, Halong is best seen by boat so we'd booked onto a 2 day fancy pants cruise to travel round the bay in style. We were picked up in a minibus from our hotel in Hanoi about 7:30am and arrived to the boat at midday to check into our cabin.

On leaving the harbour we get further into the bay and the views are just incredible. The weather had been looking a bit grim for days so we actually were really worried we weren't going to be able to see anything and it'd be a total waste of money/time but in the end the mist kind of added to its magical charm. Thousands of towering isles forming such amazing views against the white skies and turquoise waters. BEAUTIFUL (if not a little wet!!!).

It's so much colder here in north Vietnam but it didn't stop us from kayaking!!! If anything it was a great opportunity to escape the rest of the cruise guests. We're not usually ones for organised tours but this one is quite nice actually. 

Most of the islands are uninhabited but we did have some locals stop by our cruise ship trying to sell us beer / crisps / shells! 

Dinner was a delicious array of fish and seafood (my favourites). And I thoroughly enjoyed my Tom Collins cocktail whilst sitting in the jacuzzi bath looking out the window at the other twinkly boats at night! Ahhh...

Gav's day 30 takeaway

• I try not to look when our minivan driver is on his phone overtaking a bus who's overtaking a lorry who's overtaking a motorbike who's overtaking a cyclist on a bend on a single lane road. But I can't help but look and pray.
• I was unsure about a cruise but y'know boat life could be waiting for me in retirement. Maybe I could do a cruise.
• On boarding our boat, we were immediately served lunch and shared a table with a mad Korean airline engineer called Jack. He was as funny as he was mental. I mostly appreciated his lack of appreciation for the cruise manager who loved his own voice, the microphone and an echo effect a little too much.
• Later that day I (sort of) did karaoke over a microphone with an echo effect.