You? Me? Marriage? Good!

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Our boat was called the 'Ha Long Dream', and it really was...

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This morning I set my alarm really early and walked down to Hoan Kiem lake to watch early morning Tai Chi. Felt like I was watching the real Vietnam – it was wonderful. There were very few tourists around, and people were already up and active. It was nice to see that they seemed to share this early morning, communal ‘stretch’ to get ready for the day. Tai Chi, stretching, jogging and playing badminton together.

When the others were up we wandered around the Dong Xuan Market and I practised bartering for a bag. For lunch we went to the infamous ‘Cyclo café’ – nice food and the seats are old cyclos. Had various things on toast, which was a nice change after all the rice and noodles and tofu.

We had a 4hr bus ride to Halong city this afternoon. It was nice to get out of the city and see the Vietnamese countryside. We passed typical images that are conjured up whenever anyone mentions Vietnam – people wearing conical hats working in paddy fields and cycling along dirt tracks with brilliant green vegetables. Wonderful but a little unnerving because we were no longer in the safety of the capital. Less and less of them spoke English and cafes in the little villages we passed seemed to sell nothing but ‘Thit Cai’ – dog meat!

The sunset happened in about 30 seconds, it was so quick! We were all stuck on another boat, so no-one had a camera! But I caught this just as we were making our beds on deck

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Visited a day centre for handicapped children, which, when I first went in, thought was a sweatshop. There were perhaps 100 children sat in rows sowing intricate silk pictures which were for sale on the walls around them. Older children wandered around in groups of twos practising their English on tourists. We later found out that these children and young people could not work in any other occupation because of their disability, and that this work gave them a stable income. They were second generation victims of 'Agent Orange'.

Halong City is very noisy and seasidey, and our hotel is a high-rise one among a cluster of others. I wandered out to find English food in a modest Vietnamese café. The waiter spoke really good English and was keen to practice it on us – I got a marriage proposal(!) in the form of "You, Me, Marriage, Good" ("I get visa now"!), which was tempting given the location but I politely declined…

We boarded our boat in the morning through an impressive heat and a chaotic mangle of people. Ha Long Bay is an absolute dream – stunning scenery; I took hundreds of photographs, which don’t do justice to the experience of actually being there. This was the highlight of the trip – I wanted to stay forever cruising through the bay. I spent most of the trip sat at the front of the boat, unable to take my eyes off the weird cliff formations that were dotted around the bay. Small fishing boats followed our big tourist boats wherever we went, either begging for food or selling souvenirs and postcards. During our meal on the boat we gave some of our unmanageable feast to some begging children, but received a knowing glare from the chef. We stopped and explored a tourist cave, and then again at an island where we swam in the water to cool off. It was wonderful to be in the water and even swim after being inactive on the boat for so long. From the island we paired up and went kayaking amongst the surrounding islands. We found and stopped at one which had a lonely shrine on it, not without empty bottles and fag ends unfortunately. Later we kayaked through a cave and into an echoey alcove in the middle of a group of islands – stunning. It was quite hard going paddling, but fun all the same.

Back on the boat we nearly missed the sunset – it all happened so quickly – but caught the end of it as we sat chatting on the top deck. We allocated and arranged our mattresses on the deck in the dark, which was really fun. Sleeping out on the deck was the most amazing experience – I couldn’t sleep at all, just lay on my back looking at the stars. I saw my first shooting star! and about 5 minutes later thought of a special wish…

Was planning to wake up early enough to see the sunrise but amazed and disappointed to find that I’d slept through it. Sat again on my spot at the very front of the boat, and all too soon I could see Ha Long City fast approaching. Secretly hoped that the boat would break down and we would have to stay here forever…

Back in the sweltering heat and bustling activity of Ha Long City, we had lunch at a small café and then got on the bus back to Hanoi.

Trying to get on the sleeper train this evening was quite fun, as there was no platform! Thought that we might stay up playing cards and just generally ‘bonding’ but fell asleep immediately and didn’t wake again until it was time to watch the sunrise through the window. It was really uncomfortable and the sheets were highly questionable, but the experience of being on a sleeper train rushing through the Vietnamese countryside was brill!