Halong Bay, two birthday cakes and just enough rice vodka to take the edge off the kareoke! - Part 2

After our kayak we were rewarded with some great, local food. Delicious spring rolls, fish dishes, tofu and much more - scarily it just kept on coming! After the food came the second birthday cake of the day and lots of singing - which was really nice of everyone. I also got a lovely bouquet of 12 red roses - which were lovely (if a bit of a nightmare to carry around from boat to boat and hotel to hotel and I managed to forget them somewhere sadly). Accompanying all this was fluorescent pink 'champagne', the less said here the better!! 

"If I could drink only one wine, it would be Champagne." - Gary Vaynerchuk

A very nice and thoughtful surprise and a lovely fuss was made. It seemed that in all that celebrating on my behalf everyone got carried away and before we knew it the rice vodka was flowing and karaoke was on full blast. We were sipping the rice vodka and trying not to lose our sight (it was pretty strong) whilst trying to refuse any more of this danger drink and slowly getting sloshed! The karaoke was pretty full on, and talent was no barrier to enthusiasm - especially for the staff. 

"I have been called the human jukebox, yes. But karaoke is not meant for people who can sing!" - Carrie Underwood

The staff were all SE Asian and all the guests were from a variety of non-karaoke-singing-nations such as Australia, Switzerland, India and the UK. Slowly we all shied away from the karaoke, accompanying bleeding ears and rice vodka: and found ourselves outside taking in Halong Bay by night. It was around 10.30pm by this stage and we were all geared up for a few more drinks and some relaxation time before the celebrations at midnight. Suddenly we looked around and the staff had packed up the karaoke, closed the bar and bedded down to get some sleep. Cultural differences seemed to show as we didn't want to do karaoke, we must not want to party, so it was bed time. 'Before midnight?! on New Year?!' I hear you cry - yup! We stuck it out for another half an hour or so with empty glasses in the cold on the top deck of the boat, before deciding that being in the middle of the sea nothing was going to change at midnight - we would still be drinkless and cold and there wouldn't be fireworks, so at 11.30pm - we relented and went to bed! 

'If you can't beat em. join em' - anon

We got up for sunrise at around 6.30am and took in the sunrise views. Luckily for someone she does not drink any more, but I had definitely felt better - rice vodka and florescent pink 'champagne' and a G'n'T or two were not a recipe for a harmonised sunrise wake up. Glad I did it though as it was beautiful. 

Next stop, a look out point where we climbed around 400 steps of a lookout point to see these - very worth while - views...

From here we set sail towards Cat Ba Island and we changed boats along with the Australians, mid sea.

The staff on the whole tour were awesome, but having shared a birthday and new year with this crew they had really looked after us, so we did really miss them! 

Off we set onwards to Cat ba...

Every so often there would be a random home with a small family and a dog in the floating middle of nowhere. Making a living off fish, shellfish and kayaks.

We got to Cat Ba and took motos or cycled to the start of our walk around the national park. 

It was nice having an amble through the jungle and soon we were on the road back...

Before heading back out on a boat...

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing on the boat and kayaking around one of the islets...

"If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."- Loren Eiseley

We journeyed on before dark and went to the more populated side of Cat ba Island, here there were many floating villages and fishing communities...

We got to the harbour and headed to our hotel, freshened up and headed out for the evening with one of the other guests on the trip where we went to a local eatery and shared some food. I remember delicious pineapple and squid and terrible burnt fish!

View from the hotel.

Sun setting

Cat Ba harbour sign,

The next day we took the boat back out to Halong bay, and saw more stunning islets.

Apparently the rock formation below is very famous and looks like two fighting cockrels.

We took the mini bus back to Ha Noi, picked up a few essentials, had dinner in a local restaurant next to a group of twenty something lads, one of which had clearly been overdoing it and had many a story to tell of ladies and booze and drugs. We stifled giggles as one of his friends checked, very seriously, when the last time was he had changed his underwear. 

Soon we were off to the train station and pleased to be joined by the lovely Ozzies from the boat, they were trekking Fansipan Mountain for a few days and we were trekking the rice paddies.

Working out which train and which carriage to board was really confusing, but the company rep was great and got us sorted. Soon we were tucked into our bunks next to a Dutch couple and on our way....

“The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

Halong Bay, two birthday cakes and just enough rice vodka to take the edge off the kareoke! - Part 1

After work we headed to the airport and caught a flight to Hanoi. I thought the city would be similar in size to Siem Reap and was totally wrong. For an avid traveller I am pretty bad at research! 

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing." - Wernher von Braun

The drive took about an hour and we got in about 11pm, we were met by a couple of porters and led down some dark lanes to the hotel, which made us both a little nervous, after our welcome drink and lots of information, we went straight to bed. The hotel we booked, the 'Serene Hotel' was supposed to be one of the most romantic in Hanoi and came with rose petals on the bed, a little wasted on us! But made us chuckle!

In the morning we were being picked up around 7am, so breakfast was an early affair and accompanied by a sweet, creamy birthday cake and lots of singing - very sweet of the hotel, pretty embarrassing though. I shared the cake around with all the guests (no one too keen for cake at 6.30am) and despite the hotel staff insisting I took it with me (on a 4 hour bus journey and a boat) I managed to insist harder that they must all have a slice and left it with them - really sweet of them!

"Birthdays are natures way of telling us to eat more cake" - anon (at 6am?!)

We were picked up and led to the mini bus and were soon on our way out of Hanoi, it was interesting to see more of Vietnam and strange for me to feel a much cooler temperature. I don't remember much about the journey other than our guide talking about how the Vietnamese love their alcohol! We finally got to the coast and took around 4 million Dong out of the cash point to see us through the trip - about $60 I think! 

"People say that I'm a millionaire, but that's not true - I only spend millions." - Robert Plant

Soon we were on our way out of the harbour and heading toward Cat Ba Island.

Our little ferry took us to our boat.

So many boats all waiting for passengers at this harbour.

Our Cabin.

And we were off into the beauty of the bay.

People living and fishing on the boats out here.

"Fishing provides that connection with the whole living world. It gives you the opportunity of being totally immersed, turning back into yourself in a good way. A form of meditation, some form of communion with levels of yourself that are deeper than the ordinary self." - Ted Hughes

And some bigger boats too.

I had a play around with sepia for that old world feel.

We loved these boats, they are used at night - can you see all the bulbs on top of the rigging? At night these are lit and it brings squid and octopus to the surface of the water for fishing. 

"Talent without discipline is like an octopus on roller skates. There's plenty of movement, but you never know if it's going to be forward, backwards, or sideways." - H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"I was bitten by an octopus." - Ted Cruz

The place really is as stunning as the photos!

A little temple cut into the rock face.

Idyllic..

Into the bat cave (cave with bats not Batman's home).

There were lots of rock formations and everyone loves making pictures out of them - usually animals or religious depictions...

The light at the end of the tunnel!

Once back outside we were rewarded with some stunning views...

Next we headed off in our kayaks to see the sunset and a lagoon inside the rock formations before paddling back to the boat...(no pics of this bit as I didn't want to get the camera wet)

"Keep looking up! I learn from the past, dream about the future and look up. There's nothing like a beautiful sunset to end a healthy day." - Rachel Boston

It was pretty hard to find our boat as there were so many other kayak-ers and similar boats and our guide came to find us and a few others in the end. He had to go back and help a few people who weren't very water confident who also nearly capsized due to almost being run over by a tourist ferry! 

Safely back on the boat it was time to enjoy the birthday / New Year celebrations and some scary rice vodka!

"I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade... And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party." - Ron White