The final day

This is the final day of the journey. It has been awesome. A great group of people we have travelled with which has made the trip so enjoyable.

We went for a walk around the city today, stopping at Ho Chi Minh's mausoleum, the humble House on Stilts and the One Pillar Pagoda. We also looked at the Temple of Literature and Hanoi's first university dating back to 1070.



























Time for a shower, pack the bags and out for lunch before departing for the airport and sitting on the plane for a number of hours.

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Location:Hanoi, Vietnam

Halong Bay to Hanoi

Today we took a sampan through a cave into a magnificent lagoon not far from our junk. We were the first to arrive and we thank Dihn for asking us to go before breakfast. It was so peaceful in there.












We returned to the junk and spent the rest of the morning meandering our way through the rock formations back to the dock. It was great viewing. It was amazing watching the day trippers heading in for a look around. There were boats all over the place. We enjoyed lunch before disembarking and the crew prepared the boat for the next group. They had about a 30 minute turn around.


















The bus trip took 3 hours back to Hanoi where we checked back into our hotel. We went the Vietnamese Water Puppet Show and then had dinner. Our last night with the group.









Some are continuing their journey visiting China and Japan. Some are returning home. Some will be back at work on Monday morning where the journey will become a distant memory.

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Location:Halong Bay, Vietnam

Halong Bay

We travelled by bus for over three hours today to Halong Bay where we boarded the Marguerite Junk for the night. We stopped at a rice farm for a stretch of the legs and a look around.









It rained for a significant amount of the journey which did not look good for our night on the bay. The trip to the junk on the tender was very wet. We had our lunch on board and set sail. The rain stopped after we headed off on our journey. A combination of the rain and the mist/smog restricted our views.






As promised, the rain cleared and so did the skies. What a spectacular part of the world.















We went by tender to explore one of the caves in the area. The police turned us around. Not wearing life jackets. Too many people on board. Who knows? It has not been an issue in the past. We did learn there had been an accident the previous day and also the bay had been closed until shortly before our arrival due to the bad weather. Lucky for us, we were allowed in. So back to our boat we went, put on life jackets and made the journey in two trips this time. All was good. The cave and the views were spectacular.





















Lucky for us we had this delay as it allowed us to view a magnificent sunset. A group of about 8 took the option of kayaking to a nearby beach. The rest of us joined them there for a refreshing swim.







































A glorious day!

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Location:Halong Bay, Vietnam