Today the trusty poncho's were used extensively, Vietnam welcomed us with heavy rain. Trying to keep passports and documentation dry was almost impossible. Electric cars ferried us to the connecting bus depot and on looking for our tourist bus we couldn't see it anywhere..... That could be because we weren't in a bus..... It had shrunk to a mini van which was right in front of our noses!
Hmmmmm! We think we may have been a bit spoilt in China, the trip to Ha Long Bay was Ha - Loooooong! And bumpy and slow and tedious to say the least. 315 km took us 6 and a half hours, phew were we pleased to arrive. So much so that we accepted the offer of the first tout on the street to look at his hotel ..... What you say??? It was across the road and was US$15 a night per couple, and we got the whole floor to ourselves, huge rooms including baths, balcony and lift!
We were so pleased with our host that we let him sell us a DELUXE two day one night Junk cruise through the World Heritage Site of Ha Long Bay for the bargain price of US$90 each including two lunches, cocktails at sunset, dinner, breakfast, cooking lesson, evening entertainment, snorkelling, kayaking... What you say, all this for NZ$102? And what's more we have photos to prove the deal!
We confirmed this was a bargain by getting a second pricing of US $115 after bargaining from the opposition across the road.
More on this tomorrow!
Apart from our host being very willing to talk and smile we were rather underwhelmed by our first interactions with the local residents. We went around the town and into a restaurant to be served by surly, unfriendly staff until in typical Brent fashion he managed to totally mis-pronounce every dish on the menu and have a good laugh and engage them into giving him a lesson in Vietnamese! Even then I think they were pleased when we left....
All in all we live in hope that things improve. Heading off to bed to dream about our luxury cruising in the Bay.....ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!
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