Can we stay just one more night - Wow, just wow!

Our trip to Ha Long Bay was just fantastic! After a few drinks last night, we went back to our room to be greeted with rose petals and a massive cake with “Happy Honeymoon,” what a lovely gesture! 



We decided to get up at 6am for Tai Chi on the upper deck. Not! We also decided not to bother with the excursion to Ti Top Island for hiking or swimming as that was leaving at 7.40am and it was really foggy....we chose sleep!

At 8.30am, we headed to breakfast. There was a choice of eggs and numerous other bits and pieces including Pho bo, North Vietnamese noodle soup with beef; we chose the Pho (prounounced Foe) to share and eggs benedict each. After breakfast, we returned to the cabin to pack and relax on the balcony before check out at 9.30am. 








The boat docked just after 10am and Luan was there to meet us. Unfortunately, our flight wasn’t until 6.30pm so we had to kill as much time as possible; first stop, the ceramic factory. Luan showed us how they make some of the ceramics. One very interesting technique was using broken egg shells to decorate a piece, before sanding and glazing (second pic below), it looked amazing. We were then ushered to the gift store.... We bought a couple of espresso cups, which we didn’t really want, but they were only 6 dollars and hand-made, painted and glazed, so cant complain. Anything else would have weighed us down for the next 3 weeks so we just had to get something small.







Our next stop was a vegetable garden; Luan was telling us that lots of producers now use pesticides but the farm we were at does not. We got to see lots of herbs, onions, cabbage and lettuce. He also told us that when there is flooding in the region, the price of vegetables will increase dramatically and can be even more expensive than pork. Thankfully, it was a beautiful day!





It was now around 1pm, and after driving out of the province under the 2 million USD bridge, we went to see the embroidery art factory. This place was amazing as it supported disabled people, to educate them in the art of embroidery and help them to provide for their families. The art was beautiful, but expensive! This place was also our stopover for lunch; we went to the cafe and had a drink as we weren’t particularly hungry.





At 2pm, we drove back to Hanoi Airport, another hour drive; I fell asleep and woke up as we arrived. We checked into our flight and said goodbye to Luan. We had over 2 hours until our flight to Da Nang so decided to find the lounge; thank you AMEX! 

We are currently sitting waiting for our flight.....until tomorrow..... 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anniversary Holiday

Image
Every year, around December 8th, I look to see what we can do or where we can go to celebrate "surviving" another year of marriage.   Over the last few years, we've been back to our wedding venue for an overnight stay, had an all-inclusive holiday in Ras al Khaimah in the UAE, visited New Orleans and had a Michelin tasting menu at The Kitchin in Leith. This year, we decided to stick with Europe and head to Riga, the capital of Latvia. Back in April 2020, we were supposed to visit Riga, but the trip was cancelled due to Covid. I'm not sure why its taken us so long for us to rebook, but the prospect of a traditional Christmas market and some Glühwein convinced us. We flew Ryanair from Edinburgh to Riga on Sunday 3rd December; the flight was 2 hours late, but thankfully we had paid for a lounge so we weren't too bothered. I had pre-booked a taxi on arrival and was delighted given the delay; the journey was only 15 minutes, but it was midnight and -10 when we arrived ...
Read more

Bucharest & Dracula

Image
This is another one of these holidays that we had booked in 2020, for my birthday to be precise. It's only now, April 2024, that we managed to rebook and make our way to the Capital, Bucharest and the mountains and countryside of Transylvania. It was the usual deal, British Airways via London using a companion voucher and Avios to upgrade to business class; I'm pretty sure the flights cost us £2. The flight to London was early, and it was absolutely beautiful coming into London; we had fabulous views of the city.  We arrived in Romania late afternoon, and had a taxi waiting to take us to the hotel. I had booked The Mansion Boutique Hotel, a 4 star hotel in the centre of the pedestrian district; we had to be let off by the side of the cobbled streets but thankfully it was only a 2 minute walk. Check-in was great, we got a glass of fizz each and taken to our room which was called "Zen". We actually didn't have too long, so unpacked quickly and made our way out of th...
Read more

366 Steps with a Hangover!

Image
Surprisingly, we weren’t feeling quite so fresh this morning. We decided to delay breakfast and go straight to the Belfry of Bruges, a medieval bell tower. There are 366 steps which lead you to the top of the 83 metre high building. Normally, this would be fine but with the cold and a hangover, I was not feeling the best. The spiral staircase is very steep at the top so they only allow 50 people up at a time; we had to wait at the bottom for a few minutes which was a bit of an inconvenience, but now I understand why they have these restrictions. We made it to the top and only had a 10 minute wait until 11am which would signal a lot of bells chiming. I’m sure you can imagine how my head was feeling at the end of it! After descending the tower, we headed to the Church of our Lady Bruges as there is a Michelangelo sculpture located there. Unfortunately, you had to buy a museum ticket in order to see it so we decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead, we went for lunch at a very quaint tea room....
Read more