Halong Bay

The following morning, we met up with our tour group for a two day trip to Halong Bay. At 8:30 a.m. we boarded a minibus with 16 others and made our way to Halong City to catch the boat to Halong Bay. The group consisted of Kevin and myself, three girls from Ohio, a couple from Australia, a couple from the Netherlands, a couple from France and a couple we befriended while waiting for the bus, Eileen from Ireland and Duncan from Scotland. We arrived in Halong Bay in two and a half hours and found the docks filled with old Vietnamese fishing "junks" turned tourist boats. The junks were large wooden boats with sleeping quarters ringing the lower deck, a dining room on the middle deck and a sun/lounge deck with chairs rounding out the top.

About half an hour after we set out, we shared a lunch table with Eileen, Duncan, Eddie and his girlfriend and traded travel stories. After lunch, we were allowed to check into our rooms, which were neat little cabins with two twin beds, a night stand and a wardrobe. We left our things in the room and mad our way to the deck to enjoy the scenery, the company of our fellow guests and the warmth of the sun. Climbing to the top deck, I could hardly believe that just 24 hours ago we were freezing, teeth chattering in the pouring rain on our way back to Hanoi. Around us the islands of Halong Bay rise from the water, giant limestone rocks covered with trees and brush, their imposing perpendicular cliffs looking harshly uninhabitable from a distance.

Our afternoon of leisure was punctuated with two cave trips, each relatively touristy, but interesting nonetheless. The first cave was the smaller of the two and the route out took us through a small tunnel opening to a path that led up to the top of the cliff revealing a beautiful panoramic view of the bay. The second cave was enormous, with three rooms, the largest easily the size of a small football stadium. After the cave tours, we were taken back to the boat where we spent an hour or so swimming in the water around the boat until the local jellyfish scared us all out of the water.

Dinner was nice, afterwhich, exhausted, I turned in early, while Kevin stayed to enjoy the company of the other members of the group. The following day we rose early for breakfast and for a few hours of kayaking around the bay. The boat docked near a floating village - a cluster of houses built on individual wooden platforms with fish farms underneath them - where we got into pairs and loaded into our kayaks and headed out into the bay. Kevin was in the rear where all the work is done, so we were soon well ahead of the pack. We rowed around many of Halong Bay's "islands" and through some cuts in the rock where Kevin happily steered me under all of the spots dripping water. At one point we rowed into what we thought was a cove, but found a cave on the far side that we could manuver through and we found another little cove filled with jelly fish (the kind that itch, not the kind that sting).

After about two hours, we made our way back to the boat, where we showered, packed and enjoyed our last few moments on the boat before getting the bus back to Hanoi. All in all it was a nice trip (except for all the little cockroaces on the ship, which I wrote lots about on the evaluation form); a relaxing way to spend our last two days in Vietnam.