Ha Long Bay
Trip Start
Jan 22, 2008
1
15
25
Trip End
Apr 16, 2008
Ha Long Bay,
Vietnam
Saturday, March 1, 2008
We booked a 3 day, 2 night trip to Ha long Bay, nominated as one of the "New 7 Wonders of the World".
Ha long Bay is over 1500 square Kilometers in area and has over 1800 islands, none of which are inhabited. On the waters around the islands though there are many "Floating Villages" where people live on their house boats. Most of the inhabitants are fisherman and a lot of the women and children have small boats filled with goods which they try to sell to the tourists.
In total there are 14 people in our tour, and the first night we will stay on the boat. The boat is fairly large, has 7 bedrooms for the guests and a staff of 6 people. Our cabin has a double bed, washroom c/w shower and is quite large. After we check in we go up to the the top deck to see whats going on while we cruise out to sea
Amazing Caves
. It is cool and we are bundled up in our warmest clothes that we have. After cruising for a while we stop for a lunch break, then cruise some more until we reach a floating village. We are met there by some young ladies who bring Kayaks out to our boat. Off we go on a 2 hour trip to explore some lagoons and caves in our Kayaks. It is very calm and we have a great time paddling around. Of course Sharon and I can never quite keep things in sync with each other but did manage to keep up with everyone else.Back to the Boat for a hot shower, dinner and a few beers. We were sitting with a lovely couple from Austria, Petra and Honna, and had a good time discussing foods from all over the world. Honna has a restaurant about 30 km outside of Vienna, an Asian Fusion type of place. Sounds interesting. Luckily there was heat in our room as it got quite chilly in the night.
The next morning we went to investigate a series of 3 caves on foot. The walking tour of the 3 caves took about an hour, so you can get an idea of how large they were. The only other cave I can remember going to was in New Mexico and it was not as large as these. While in the caves Tom, our guide told us the legend if how Haling Bay was created. The Vietnamese were being invaded by the Chinese and a Dragon came out of the sky to save them. The Dragon thrashed around his tail and while doing this he created all the small islands which the Chinese boats then crashed into thereby saving the Vietnamese.
After our tour it was back to our boat as there were 3 of us who were going to stay in Bungalows for the night on a private island that the tour company owned
Early morning activity in the Bay
. We changed boats and cruised for a couple of hours to our Island and it was just as beautiful as we were told. There was another family already there so in total there were only 7 guests on the whole island. We had some lunch and then went out Kayaking again around the island, and saw some Jellyfish, but no other fish etc. There are no animals living on the island, but some of the surrounding islands have Monkeys and Goats in them. The Bungalows were a little more upscale from the ones we stayed at in Cambodia, but no heat. So they had electric blankets in the beds. Needless to say we cranked it up at night as it was still quite cold.I woke up at 5:30 the next morning so I could watch the sunrise, but it was cloudy and foggy so went back to the warm bed. for an hour or so. We had to pack up in the morning as we were leaving at 8am to cruise back to meet our other boat and then cruise back to the pier for our bus ride back to Hanoi.
Overall the trip was great, but it was a shame that we had cold weather, because we couldn't swim or really do too many "beach" things. But we made the best of it and would highly recommend this trip to anyone, the sights are amazing and the tour company really tries to make sure that you have a good time.
Tomorrow, Saturday we fly to Laos so we will give you an update when we can.
Norm and Sharon
