Halong Bay. What a spot!

Get ready for a long entry because this place was absolutely spectacular. A few things to note before I get started though. First is that there are no visible road markings either so with the absence of them and traffic lights it's best to just look out the side window when being driven places and second is that I think it's green tea from now on for me because the lady sitting front of me on the way to Halong Bay was 80 and she had not a wrinkle on her. She was from Indonesia and had the most amazing skin I'd ever seen, flawless, hardly any wrinkles, actually the skin of a 30 year old.

Cars and motorbikes coming straight at us

When we got to Halong Bay we were greeted by our guide, Jackie, I have never seen anyone with a bigger smile. We would later learn that Jackie was a man of many, many talents. The first place we visited was the 'Surprising Caves' and it was a hot spot in the bays. When we got up into the caves we were shown three chambers. Jackie told us they got bigger as we went. The 1st one was about the size of our house, 2nd one maybe 3 houses and the 3rd one was massive!!! Like bigger than a rugby field. As we would go through Jackie would point his laser and in very broken English would tell us what the stalactites and stalagmites looked like and funnily enough they actually looked like what he said. Things we saw in the cave; Romeo and Juliet on the balcony, pointing finger and hole, turtle, kissing couple, lion, elephant, sea lion, happy Buddha, standing Buddha, little dog, hanging legs, octopus, bat, eagle, mermaid, lady washing her hair, old man with grey hair and the list goes on. He showed me where a giant tortoise was and if I rubbed it I'd get some 'lucky' and yea I feel like I definitely got some lucky! Another cool thing was boat jumping to get back onto our boat. Boat jumping for those of you who don't know is when you climb through other boats to get to your own. Was very 007.

Our pad

View from the front of our boat

The family at the lookout at entry of the 'Surprising Caves'

Me getting some 'lucky'

Inside the third chamber with the new member of our family, Jackie

Now I should explain Jackie. He was our guide who could do everything, if there is something Jackie can't do I'd be shocked. He took us into the caves, pointed out those shapes, found mum some AA batteries for her camera, ROWED our boat full of 14 people (full grown people) in a heavy current around some caves, cut up vegetables into fancy flowers, taught us history and took a tai chi class in the morning. Great guy our Jackie is and he is part of the family now.

After the trip into the caves we took a trip on a small row boat. Now a note about the row boat trip. Quite windy and choppy. Old Jackie Chan took on quite a challenge in the conditions. Going through the entrance was the hardest and our boat did crash into another boat. It was full of a VERY serious group of asian people (no laughing from them). Also going through the entrance we heard a boat full of people yelling 'HELLO, hello, where you from?!?', we quickly found out they were from Korea. We saw that same boat about 5 mins later and yes did bump into them but they laughed it of. One of them yelled out, 'I from Korea, GANGNAM STYLE' and did a small dance, the whole boat erupted as did ours. Ah Koreans, lovely folk. The most confusing part of the trip was when we had to go back through the entrance and by this stage the current was stronger than ever. We were sitting in the back bench, so right in front of Jackie and he was screaming what we thought was 'WATCH YOUR HAT, WATCH YOUR HAT' and we assumed he was talking to the guy in the row in front of us who had his cap on backwards. He was actually telling us to watch our HEADS because the oars were nearly hitting us because he had to put so much effort into it.

Jackie rowing our boat, what a smile!

Me and mum on the row boat

Just before our crash

I'm proud of my food effort this trip. I tried clam and crab. Dad did well too and those of you who know mum and Matt, well you can guess that they didn't try any new foods.

In our history lesson Jackie told us that if we were to come in 2 years from now we wouldn't be able to see it, Halong Bay, like this. Lots of changes are happening in Vietnam, all over Vietnam and not just here. In 2014, 1000 boat people who live in Halong Bay will be made to leave their home on the water and have to go to the land. It's a UNESCO regulation for it to remain a 'natural wonder of the world' because to be in that category there needs to be no people. It's a sad reality for these people who have lived for generations on the sea. We are very lucky to have seen it as it is at this moment.

Life in Halong

Selling their goods

Life in Halong

Floating village

I guess something kind of funny that happened today was when I dropped mum and dad's room key over the side of the boat... I felt horrible. Mum wanted her key and I was trying to take a picture and boom overboard it went. Guess who found a key that opened the room? Jackie did!!! He was convinced we found the key because we got the 'lucky' in the cave from rubbing the tortoise. I later went to ask him if I needed to give him any money and 'no, no, no' followed by a big smile :D

After our early morning rise we went Ti Top island and climbed 423 steps to the lookout. Sore legs? Yes! Was it worth it? YES!!!  Truly breath taking sights.

At top of Ti Top Island

This is just showing off

Family at the top of the lookout

Ti Top Island

Jump for Halong Bay

Our Halong Bay trip was something I was very much looking forward to and it was everything I expected it to be and more. It's a very special spot and I'm happy I got to see it while it's still relatively untouched. 

Stunning x