Halong Bay

We took a 3-day trip to Halong Bay earlier this week. We almost didn't make it as our flight from Hai An (via Danang airport) was delayed, delayed, delayed and finally cancelled. We managed to get onto a different airline and after running through the airport to get our luggage and make the flight, we got into Hanoi at 1am - to be picked up at 8am for the trip to Halong Bay.

We were quite exhausted, and when the van picked us up, we were very relieved to see an elderly couple in the van - this would be quite relaxing we thought! The tour guide went through the itinerary which included many leisurely boat trips around the 3,000+ islands of Halong Bay and an overnight stay on a private beach. Except... "Matthew" had a different itinerary. "Matthew" was going to be "working very hard the next few days", according to the tour guide! Apparently we were the only ones on the van who had booked an "adventure trip" which included climbing mountains and cycling...oops! Duon, our tour guide, seemed confused and asked if it was our honeymoon (we had indicated on the form that it was). When Matt confirmed that indeed it was, he shook his head and said "no, i don't think so". He couldn't believe honeymooners would book such an arduous tour. (We didn't realize what we were booking at the time either.)

Halong Bay was excellent! It's basically a ton of these limestone formations (islands) jutting out of the waters, over 3,000 of them! Our boat went around many of them and we also kayaked through some of the caves. We stayed in a bungalow right on the beach, and went to sleep & woke up to the sound of waves crashing. There was about 25 of us on this private beach on one of the many islands in Halong Bay, and we had dinner directly on the beach one night. We kayaked, hiked, mountain biked, dove off our junk boat into the bay and even drove the junk boat through the islands. We met some cool English, Dutch and German backpackers along the way.