Halong Bay - Day 1 - Fantastic
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2007
1
26
54
Trip End
Dec 20, 2007
Halong Bay,
Vietnam
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The trip to Halong was uneventful, apart from a quick toilet break at a factory were victims of the American war made paintings and other merchandise to sell. It was actually rather good, shame our backpacks couldn't hold any paintings thou.
We arrived at Halong Bay to a mass orgy of ships. These ships were so tight together we had to climb onto and off several boats to find ours, at the back as luck would have it. After finding our boat and then waiting for an hour while the captain checked our passports with customs (yep - we don't understand why either) we were off. It was quite a sight seeing what can only be described as the Vietnam Armada converge on Halong Bay. Hundreds, and we mean hundreds, of junk boats all heading for the same area of bay.
Our first day was not all about plooping our backsides on the sun deck and watching the world go by. No we climbed one of the islands and went past the constructed pathway up to a fantastic vantage point over looking other lagoons and bays. We then set out for the caves located at another island. This was intresting with all the different stalagalties and stalagmites as well as the infamous penis rock. Check the photos and try and guess which one!
We then passed several villages and wondered why Waterworld was so expensive when they could have used the floating villages located in Halong Bay. These were strange but very intriguing.
We rounded off the first day by sailing round, eating food, and Weeble using up all his memory card on his camera.
The night was interesting sleeping on a boat with our own cabin with bathroom. Better than Tom's hostel in Hong Kong. Hope your reading this Tom!!!!!!!
