Today we got up at half 6 as breakfast was at 7am. Breakfast didn't live up to the standard of dinner and lunch yesterday but that's probably because we're fussy. There was toast, eggs, plain pancakes that were semi-cold and nothing to go on them, and fruit.
The reason we had breakfast so early was so that we could go kayaking at 7:45. The kayaks were all double kayaks. Lauren was at the back and I was at the front. We had about an hour. We went through a short cave/tunnel in one of the limestone islands into a lake that was surrounded by cliffs. As we came out the tunnel we looked up and there were little brown fluffy monkeys hanging off the side of the cliff and the branches protruding out of it. They were so cute and were just hanging about above the tunnel. We kayaked round the lake, swapping photographer roles with the Argentinian girls and then back towards the cave. There was some bigger boats with lots of tourists on hanging about watching the monkeys. They were also throwing toast and bananas to the monkeys. We managed to get really close to one of them. They were so cute. We kayaked back through the tunnel and paddled around a bit before heading back to the kayak station. We had managed to stay mostly dry except for our knees where the water was dripping off the paddle. It was a lot of fun although my arms ached afterwards, and although the weather was miserable the rain had managed to hold off.
We went back to the boat and checked out of the rooms at half 9. Then we had a cooking class. Well that's what it was called but that's a bit of a stretch. There was no cooking involved and the teaching consisted of a two minute demonstration. When someone says you're going to be making spring rolls, you don't expect to be putting pre-cooked ingredients into a bit of rice paper, rolling it up and eating it. It was more like how to make a rice paper wrap class. Like a smaller version of subway, with rice paper instead of bread, and no 'cheese and toasted' option. You just selected what you wanted, dumped it in and wrapped it up. It was a bit disappointing.
After this finished we had lunch. It was only 11am but we would be leaving the boat soon. Lunch was pretty good. There was some really good crinkly chips, battered fish, a chicken and veg dish, what looked like cabbage, rice and a potato salad (I think). I was absolutely stuffed afterwards. Once we finished we floated around on the water waiting for the boat back to the shore for the bus back to Hanoi. The bus hadnt arrived yet so we were just hanging about. After a while the man leading the tour said it was here so we got on the boat back to the shore. When we got there the bus wasn't there. We waited a bit and then we were told there had been an accident and the bus was stuck and our guide had no idea how long it would take for the bus to arrive. We ended up waiting almost two hours. Eventually it turned up, we got on and off we went. There was a lot of traffic and we were at a standstill at some points but we got back to Hanoi eventually around 7:15pm. We were supposed to be getting a bus to the next place at 6pm.
We arrived in Hanoi having missed our bus and having no place to stay. We had managed to contact the travel agents we booked with at the boat terminal and she'd said they would see what they could do but whilst on the bus our guide rang up and cancelled our spaces for us as we weren't going to get there in time. We were dropped off at the hostel we had been staying at and asked if they had any space. They didn't. Thankfully the staff there are so friendly and helpful. They let us use their WiFi and toilet and we managed to book a deluxe four bed ensuite for £4 each just down the road, and the travel agents, who were also amazing, arranged a 8:30am bus for tomorrow morning at no extra charge. We grabbed our bags and headed to the hostel and discovered the rooms were not deluxe at all, but for one night it will do. We both got showers and just crashed out.
