Halong Bay

Booked a 3 day 2 night all inclusive trip through my Hotel for $50 US. Was a ball ended up with a good crew and that made all the difference, our guide was a good bloke as well. Did not start well though, our bus to Halong city was "broken" so we ended up cramming into a couple of cabs. But the boat we ended up on made up for it, was pretty nice and the food was good. The scenery on the bay was amazing lots of Karst stacks rising up out of the ocean and we wound our way through them on the boat. Visted a cave and a small island with a beach before we parked up for the night. Had a good sleep on the boat nice beds and I was well pissed.

Two English guys id met the night before and went to Bia Hoi with, (Mike and Pete) got on the piss that night on the boat, we had brought a couple of bottles of cheap spirit's. Rum 20,000 Dong and Vodka 45,000 Dong for 1 litre bottles at 40% (16,000 D = $1 US). Had a wicked hangover the next day once I sobered up.

Soon got rid of my hangover walking up a big hill on Cat Ba Island in the national park, was a nice steep climb and the views from the tower on the top were wicked, it pissed down while we were up there and for the walk down as well. Visited a cave complex used as a hospital during the American War on the way to our hotel in Cat Ba town. Checked into our hotel had a big lunch that myself and the English guys ganneted, then took a boat out to Monkey Island which funnily enough had monkeys on it. Evil monkeys, my nemesis. Took some monkey photos the Pete, Mike and I went for a walk over the Island, with money whacking sticks of course. Made it to a beach and did the classic I bet its shorter going back that way, well it was shorter and it shortened Pete's 500 squid camera life dramatically, he decided to dunk it in the water when he tripped over a rock on the wade around the headland we were going around. Mike and Pete also managed to get some nice scratches from the rocks as well.

Got back to the island had dinner and then got on the Bia Hoi then went to club which had all of 9 people in it and 5 of them were from our group, did some funky chicken (grab one ankle and jump around) and some Homer Simpson woop woop woop (running in circles while lying on the dance floor yelling woop woop woop. Was pretty funny. When that closed we got some beers and headed to the Wharf which of course I jumped off (staple), pity the tide was out and I couldn't get back up, made it in the end with the help of some Vietnamese fishermen. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Stayed the night on Cat Ba and awoke with another cracking hangover, had a nice boat ride back to Halong City, did some jumps off the boat which was about 7m. lunch in town then back to the bg smoke.

All in all was a rad trip, was initially going to do it on my own but am glad I did the group organised thing.