Day 190: Friday 13th of May 2016

Day 190
Friday 13th of May 2016

Breakfast at the hotel before checking out and meeting our lift for our tour to Halong Bay. Jumped on the few seats available in the bus to find my legs didn't physically fit in the seat (not helped by all the euro backpackers with their seats down or sprawled across seats). Jumped to another seat that I just fit in with knees pressed against the seat in front of me for the 3 hour bus ride. Stopped at a toilet stop halfway that was clearly a commission raising exercise with all manner of shops.

Eventually got to the bay and boat and set off over lunch,  (mostly sea food). It bucketed down over the next trip, but fortunately stopped before disembarking.  First stop (and later discovered only, to our disappointment) was a limestone cave, the island it was situated on was impressive, and is understandably the set of the next King Kong movie.

Back on the boat to head out to sea followed by a swim including jumping off the boat. It was fun until the oil film floated past.

Next up was dinner. Our request for no seafood had been written down as don't like fish, so we still got served crab, squid and prawns. They did offer fried luncheon meat instead.

After dinner they offered free beer, after asking twice for non alcoholic drinks he asked his manager who said no. Only beer. They also offered no alternative earlier when they offered wine.

So rather than watch people get drunk and smoke heavily we went to bed. Whoopee.