On Monday morning we left Hanoi for Halong Bay. Halong Bay has more than 3000 islands `rising from the clear, emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin` and is a Unesco World Heritage site. I quote that because unfortunately the bay`s waters have largely been ruined due to the countless numbers of boats that ship tourists out there each day. Vietnams` `natural marvel` has been exploited to the max- when we anchored for the night we were sharing the bay with roughly 30 other boats. However, as the guide book suggests, to see the many islands and grottos a boat trip is mandatory so we booked a two day trip which included staying the night on a junk.

Unfortunately for us it seemed that paying the backpacker price meant that we were stuck with possibly the rudest crew in the whole bay! The chef was a little witch and this isn`t just Kathryn being melodramatic- everyone thought she was! It was made clear that once people had finished lunch we weren`t allowed to sit in the cabin. She was literally rolling the tablecloth up as people were still eating and drinking! Some people had bought their own alcohol onto the boat and she walked around waving a sign in their faces trying to make people pay for having their own drinks rather than buy her ridiculously over-priced ones. One girl refused to pay for buying a beer from a cafe so had to sit at the back of the boat and drink it there rather than getting back onboard. The lady even went around undoing peoples` drinks bottles and smelling them! We have found it a little disappointing how money-grabbing they are over here. When we checked out of our cabin the following morning p-j left his phone on the bed and when he went down to get it the lady wanted the equivalent  of $10 for `finding` it, it really was quite ridiculous! In Thailand everyone seems to barter good naturedly but over here they are quite nasty about it!

On our first day we visited a couple of caves, one being Hospital Cave. This site was used as a secret hospital during the American War. The cave was huge and had some pretty cool rock formations in it. Naturally, our boat didn`t get a guide so we attempted to tag along with other tour groups! To see the next cave we were told we had to part with more money to get on a different boat. After that we got taken around a floating fishing village so that was quite nice to see how the people lived out there. In the evening a few people went kayaking and then we anchored for the night.

The next day we didn`t actually do anything except head back to the mainland but the crew still thought it necessary to come banging on our doors at 7am for a breakfast of stale bread and stone cold fried eggs. When we asked for more than one chunk of butter to go with our 25 slices of bread we were flatly refused! After breakfast we were kicked out of our cabins so the crew had seven hours to change the bedsheets in eight rooms which was odd because the sheets we had slept on had clearly not been washed! Haha it does sound all doom and gloom but i guess looking back on it we can only laugh and at least we were in it with everyone else. Thankfully the sun came out that morning so we were able to sunbathe on deck for the journey back. So i guess our trip was half successful, we met some really nice people and despite the crowds it is still a very pretty area so i`m still glad that we went. It just seems a shame that the people don`t seem to want to look after it that well. When one of the girls on the boat asked for an ashtray the lady just pointed at the sea! Once we were back on dry land we were taken to a restaurant for lunch and then it was a three hour bus ride back to Hanoi.

We got back to Hanoi at around 4pm and the night bus we were catching down to Danang left at 6.30pm. When we went to collect our bus ticket though we were told that the bus didn`t actually stop at Danang, how nice of them to tell us after we had given them our money! So we decided instead to stop at a place called Hue. Even tough there was no such thing at 1st or 2nd class tickets, the back of the bus was filled with beds and the front just normal seats. All the beds had already been taken! But here is the best bit- half way to Hue three people got off which left three spare beds so P-J asked the guy on the bus if we could move and he said no. At first we thought maybe more people were getting on but then we packed up his hamock, which he had had strung along the isle and proceedes to get onto the two beds himself! A couple of hours later the bus pulled over for a stop so when we got back on p-j moved our things onto the two beds. Then the cheeky bugger came back and was just saying `no, no`! and pointing at the one bed behind us. We tried arguing saying that there was one of him and two of us but he was having none of it and started moving our bags! Looking back i wish i had stood my ground but the whole bus was watching the argument so we moved back to our seats while he promptly lay down and stretched across the two beds. I was absolutely seething!! Apparently, as we have heard from other travellers, the south is supposed to be quite different. I really hope it is, it would be great if we could have some positive experiences with the locals before we left the country!