Halong Bay - Vietnam

After a long and tedious wait at the airport in Bangkok (our flight was delayed twice and then was late), we flew into Hanoi at around 11pm on Sunday night. As the longer we are unemployed the lazier we get, we decided to join onto an intrepid tour a couple of weeks ago to save the time and effort involved in making our way around Vietnam and Cambodia for the next three weeks. We are headed down the coast of Vietnam and then up through Cambodia finishing in Bangkok on the day that we fly to Africa. 7.30 in the morning saw us heading off to breakfast with the rest of our intrepid travellers, 4 aussies, a couple of kiwis and an American. We then bussed up to Halong Bay, around 4 hours from Hanoi, to spend the evening on a private boat chartered for our tour. We also had our own Vietnamese travel guide who provided us with all sorts of information on our way. We stopped by a humanity centre staffed by victims of the Agent Orange pesticide used by the Americans to clear the foliage in the Vietnam war. The effects of Agent Orange have left these people with varying degrees of disfigurement and they are now employed by the centre to do amazing embroidery pictures, make silk bags, ties and other clothing. We actually mistook one of the embroideries for a photo by accident, it was so good! We were expecting some form of primitive accommodation on the boat however ended up with cabins for two each with its own private bathroom and an amazing, pirate resembling, wooden boat. We were fed like kings, with a buffet style selection of seafood, while we cruised through the 3000 islands of gorgeous Halong Bay. We passed by a floating village, saw kiddies of various ages (some of whom we are sure could not even walk) rowing boats, and had to fend off many many Vietnamese who rowed up to our boat with a large array of snacks and beers for sale in their little row boats. We wandered through some amazing marble and limestone caves which were absolutely breathtaking and magnificent. Finally, we anchored for the night, and spent the remainder of the afternoon jumping from the decks of the boat into the deep ocean. What a life! We spent the evening on the top deck of the boat (the third level...) drinking wine and beers and trying hard to comprehend the beauty of the Bay with small islands everywhere, lights from the various boats and the silence. Vietnam, so far, is a beautiful country.