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| We decided against a overcrowded standard packet tour around Halong Bay from Hanoi and went straight to Cat Ba Island. |
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| Cat Ba Town is just a strip along the harbour. |
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| Floating restaurants and fisherboats in Cat Ba Harbour. |
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| The view from our hotelroom. |
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| The first three days on Cat Ba were cloudy, so we mainly enjoyed the view from the hotel room and took a motorbike around the island. |
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| Spelunking! Spot the bat! |
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| Surprise Cave on a one day cruise to Halong Bay. |
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| The tourist circus in Halong Bay. Spot our cruise ship! It's easy - it's the only brown one. |
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| Monkey Island! |
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| Where the monkeys like to finish the tourist's beer cans.... |
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| or coke... |
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| and more beer! |
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| a junkie's look |
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| Scaramanger's Lair! This is where (parts of) James Bond's "The Man with the Golden Gun" was filmed! |
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| House for sale in Halong Bay! ;-) |
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| The only Chinese junk with SAILS (that they always advertise...) I saw. Isn't it beautiful. |
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| But our luck didn't leave us. We booked a two day cruise on a smaller boat like this - and the sun came out. :-) |
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| Two wonderfully sunny days we spend kayaking around the less travelled and beautifully serene Lan Ha Bay (just South of Halong)... |
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| ...to tiny islands and private beaches... |
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| ...to stunning caves - this one is about 80 m long and bends in the middle, so that you kayak into the dark and when you just think you can't see any further it turns around a corner and you see the light at the other end... and then you're in a lake inside the island and can go through two more caves to more lakes... |
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| Or through beautiful arches like this.... Spot the kayak! |
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| back to our boat |
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| Not only eagles... |
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| can fly! :-) |
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| Floating fish farms |
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| and clam farms. |
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| Floating supermarket. |
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| Sundowner with Emma, Laura, Kim and Chris, who we shared the boat with. |
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| Although we saw some of these huge jellyfish at daytime, the boys went swimming at night - the plankton was glowing stronger than we have ever seen before! Everything was covered in stars and fish passing by left a trace like a shooting star. |
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| We slept on deck. It was wonderful. Sunrise in Lan Ha Bay. |
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| Also on our second day on the boat there was beautiful sunshine. |
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| Not one cloud actually. It. Was. Amazing. Not the first time, to be honest, we decided to call this blog a BRAG. :-D |
