3 day/2 night junk boat tour/cruise in Halong Bay.

Day 1: Hanoi to Halong Bay
The room and bathroom were nice.

Visit Surprising Cave – this is very touristy, but was pretty cool to see the cave and all the limestone formations.

Kayaking – the water was dirty and there weren’t that many caves to go under as promised.

Swimming off the boat – this was my favorite. I got some exercise and a woman from a fishing village came up on little boat and sold us beers while we were in the water. The cruise ship was selling canned beer for 40,000 Dong which is $2 USD and the lady on the little boat was selling for half the price.  We’re not allowed to bring the booze on board because that’s how they want to make money, so we were safe drinking in the water 😉

Squid fishing off the boat after din. I didn’t catch any, but some of the boys did. They squirted ink all over there deck.

Lunch and dinner were surprisingly very good! We had excellent seafood and pork spring rolls we made ourselves.

Day 2: Halong Bay – Cat Ba Island

Levi left to Cambodia and I stayed longer on the boat. I’m officially on my own 😀

I took a local boat to Lan Ha Bay where Monkey Island is located. Two monkeys fought over tourist food in a small tree and fell to the ground. I was really close to them so I ran away because I didn’t want to get in the middle of it. Swimming was fun.

Next we went to Nam Cat Island for lunch. This place was really nice. It has about 20 bungalows on the beach and there are like three other beaches you can swim to.

The bungalows were fully booked, so I took a ferry back to the boat in Halong Bay with all new people. But hey i got a room to myself 🙂 This group was pretty young and fun, but I still missed all the people I met on the boat the first time. A ducth girl that lives in Amsterdam, Sharon, was by far my favorite! Really fun to talk to.

I went kayaking and swimming to another island before I went back to the big boat.

On the way back i spotted Pencil rock, I wonder when it will fall over:

I discreetly bought two beers through my room’s window from another little boat. Hey I saved $2 bucks. That can go a long way in Southeast Asia

Day 3:  Cat Back Island to Halong Bay to Hanoi
Cooking class while cruising back to the port. We made fried spring rolls. So easy, I want to make at home. Ingredients: rice paper, ground pork, carrots, cucumber, mushrooms, cooked rice noodles, eggs.

Biking around Cat Back was supposed to be included, but somehow I didn’t make the list. Good thing I didn’t go because two guys told me it was lame and not worth it. I did get a refund for it. Only $5usd, but hey it was worth asking for money back.