Halong Bay

It's all very well looking at Halong Bay on Google and admiring it's beauty through pictures, but it's a completely different experience actually being in its presence.
We got picked up from the hostel at 8am after a classic bread and jelly (which tastes worryingly alcoholic) breakfast. The bus ride took four hours with a stop to go to the happy room half way. Happy room, toilet, mean same same according to our guide Sonny. During the bus ride we got a presentation on Vietnam from Sonny all about the history of Vietnam and Halong Bay. It was a very funny presentation due to Sonny's lack of English and our lack of knowledge. Though with the help of some loud Australians, intimate Colombians and practically mute Danish (actually they weren't so helpful) we got through the presentation.
We arrived at 12.30pm to board our boat 'Song Bien', and started our journey to Halong Bay. On the way we had a lunch of some classic Vietnamese dishes which were very nice, apart from the whole fish plonked in front of us. I avoided that one. After lunch we were able to go up onto the deck of the boat to watch this national heritage site approach us. It was seriously beautiful. It consists of thousands of stone islands with marvellous shapes rising out of the sea. We took A LOT of pictures! We also had the opportunity to go in a little bamboo rowing boat, rowed through caves for us by a Vietnamese woman which was amazing.
To round off the trip we had a tour round the third biggest cave in the world, which was only discovered in 1993. The tour guide revelled in showing us the naughty shaped stalagmites and stalactites.
We got back on the boat and back to the harbour just in time as it started to pour with rain.
It was such a great day and really made us think about how amazing the earth can be.

Hugs and Kisses
The three in awe of planet earth