Halong Bay
Trip Start
May 06, 2007
1
154
166
Trip End
Jul 24, 2008
Cat Ba,
Vietnam
Sunday, June 8, 2008
After a large, really good lunch consisting of real seafood for the omnivores and mock seafood for me and another vegetarian, we got off the boat to visit the cave of surprises. I hate to ruin the surprise for anyone planning on visiting, so stop reading now if you don't want to be spoiled. They were actually the most unsurprising surprises I've ever seen - essentially just shapes in the limestone - a laughing Buddha, a turtle, and a penis. Not exactly exciting, but it was a pretty nice cave. All surprised out, we got back on the boat and headed over to a fishing village where we were given a chance to go kayaking. Even though there were tons of other kayaks around us, it was really nice to get away from the big boats and over to an area where the water was a bit cleaner. We even kayaked under a small archway into a little inlet surrounded by small islands. The kayaking was definitely my favorite part of the trip.
While I opted out of swimming since I didn't really want to be coated in the murky water I did enjoy some time relaxing on the top deck of the boat just chilling out before dinner. Dinner turned out to be a production that outdid our wonderful lunch. It was also seafood (well, mock seafood for me) and was really good. That night we all hung out on top of the boat until it started raining. Then we moved downstairs into the dining area and had some fun with the karaoke machine before calling it a night.
The second day was not nearly as enjoyable as the first. After breakfast and some relaxation time on the boat we reached Cat Ba island, our stop for the night. Before lunch we visited another cave that was smaller and less interesting than the cave of surprises from the previous day. After lunch we were dropped off at our hotel for "free time". Unfortunately when signing up for the tour, they don't tell you that during this free time there really isn't much around to do and you don't have access to get anywhere. Cat Ba has a large national park, but it's about 18 km from Cat Ba town, requiring about an hour to get there by motorbike. No one else seemed keen on heading over to the national park and I didn't want to rent a motorbike alone, so that meant all that was left was the small town with a couple of beaches. These beaches were packed with Vietnamese people who stared at us like crazy while we were walking around in our shorts and t-shirts. There was no way any of us wanted to be stared at like that in swimsuits so we decided the beach was not an option. Instead we hung out in the room watching TV. Not so exciting. Eight of us did go out that night for a really good dinner, but that didn't make the island more exciting.
The last day of the tour was essentially spent getting back to Hanoi. First a minivan to the boat, then the boat, then another minivan to Hanoi. Since the second two days were pretty much a bust, I'm going to pretend that this tour was only one day long so that I'll only have wonderful memories of it.
