Ha Long Bay and Sapa, Northern Vietnam

Ha Long Bay is absolutely gorgeous. From the boats sundeck the view is amazing and every time you turn around there is another picture perfect scene. The tour we booked was a little weird and a little pricey, but we had a really good time just the same and met lots of really nice tourists. Spent quite a bit of time with a really cute French family (4 daughters!) who are travelling around the world in a year. The guys impressed them with there backflips off the sundeck and I settled for jumping off one of the balconies with them (I did jump off the sundeck once...just to prove to myself I could, but had no interest in doing it again lol). It was an amazing experience swimming around the boat, with all the stars out and these little girls squealing as they jumped together. It was adorable.

The first day we cruised around the islands and stopped at a really commercial looking cave. Neon lights all over. Looked more like a night club than a natural wonder. Then had dinner and drinks on the boat before our night swim.
The next morning we got up at 6am to go kayaking around the bay. It was cloudy so the temperature was a little cooler and really lovely. Then the boat dropped us off on Cat Ba island and we took a bus to Cat Ba National park. Here our guide said he would wait in the bus and that there was only one trail so we would be fine. Turned out there were several trails and the path was covered in jagged rocks, which made walking it in flipflops rather interesting. No one informed us we would be hiking so none of us were dressed for it. The littlest of the French girls ended up doing it barefoot, while her mother struggled to keep up in a dress. We hit a couple of dead ends before finally getting on the right path to the summit. About 3/4 of the way there Rob smacked his head on an overhanging rock. I wasn't concern at first, but then noticed the blood running down his forehead. Luckily at the top we ran into a nurse/well equiped tourist who patched him up for the walk down using gauze, disinfectant and the only clean article of clothing I had in my pack - my underwear. He looked rather odd, but made it down okay. Once we hit the town our guide took him to a somewhat legitimate looking doctor and got set up with 3 stitches. So much for an easy little trek!

We spent that night on Cat Ba island. The hotel and the little town aren't very exciting, but we strolled down to the beach for some drinks and had a great night.
All in all a good tour.

Sapa is a tiny little town in Northern Vietnam. It's about 40 km from the border to China and nestled in the mountains so it is refreshingly cool. The view from the hotel window is amazing. The hills are covered in rice paddies and a dozen different shades of green. The weather this time of year isn't stellar, but when the fog clears and the rain stops this place is truly amazing.
I opted out of the trek the others decided to do and spent the day trekking by myself. The walk down into the valley to see the Cat Cat village is pretty easy and provides great views of the hills. The actual village itself consists mostly of little shops selling hand made goods so that was a little disappointing, but I wasn't very surprised. You can't walk down the street in Sapa without having someone from a minority group try to sell you something, but they are really friendly and leave you alone pretty quickly if you say no thank you. I like Sapa very much. I don't think there is a better place to sit back, drink some tea and enjoy the view.