Amazing cruise through Halong Bay

The next morning, we woke up early, and the staff at our hotel was nice enough to make breakfast early for us so that we could have breakfast before going on our Halong Bay tour. We walked over to the office, which was only about 5 minutes away, and waited to be picked up by a bus that would drive us, about 3 hours, to our destination. While we were waiting, we met a girl in the office who was taking a different tour. She was from Russia but is currently studying in Vietnam, so living here for about 4 months. She mentioned a few places, such as Sapa, a national park, and a few caves and beaches that we should come back and visit when we have more time. She also told us that the Vietnamese language is pretty easy to learn and that she really enjoys living here, but that she loves her home country of Russia and that we have to go visit at one point. Talking with her made me realize how little I know about Russia, so hopefully one day we can go visit this country as well.

The 3 hr bus ride (it was actually a van with about 10 people in it) was a pretty funny situation. We were the only ones that unfortunately had a loose back seat, which meant that it wobbled and jumped up and down with every small little bump that we came across. I felt like we were on a vicious boat ride the entire time! The tour guide didn’t happen to notice because our seat was in the far back. We made sure to rush back to the van on the way home so that we could be the first ones on and choose another seat. The rest of the tourists were actually all Koreans from a few different groups. There was a family with 2 very young kids, who smiled and giggled at me the entire ride home! So cute! And there was 2 other small groups of Koreans maybe in their 20s- 30s. The tour guide talked about Vietnam and Halong Bay a little bit on the way there. By the end of the cruise tour, we got to know everyone from our van, as well as the tour guide and a couple from Greece, and a girl from Singapore.

Halfway there, we stopped at a rest spot to use the bathrooms or grab something to eat if we were hungry. There were also souvenirs here and a whole table of Vietnamese women actually stitching paintings! It was neat to watch and all they needed was a photograph to look at while they stitched. After observing them and looking at all the nice weaved paintings, Keith and I ended up picking out two of them…both were of Halong Bay.

The cruise ship was more than I expected. There were only about 13 or so on our cruise, and there was probably room for a hundred or more. Therefore, it was nice and spacious, with the dining area where we ate an amazing seafood feast with other side dishes, as well as a top floor where we sat to see the beautiful views. It was a cloudy day, which actually worked to our advantage since it looked very mysterious and almost spooky as if we were in a scene from Pirates of the Carribean. But as soon as we got closer to the different bays and cliffs, the greenness and rock formations came alive and brought great views and artistic images that I could capture with my camera. We passed by a floating village, which had a bank and a school (you can see these in the picture). We got off one floating plank that had a bunch of areas where they stored tons of fish. We also saw fisherman and locals in little canoes. Everyone was so friendly and waved at us. Keith told me that he really wanted to work at the floating school….it would be his dream is what he told me. Hmmmm….what an interesting year that would be if we moved to Halong Bay.

Along with floating markets, bays, and rock formations, Halong Bay is known for its many islands and caves. Our next stop was one of the caves, called Heavenly Cave. It was the most beautiful cave I have ever seen! It had an insane amount of interesting rock formations. Our tour guide pointed out probably around 10 different animal faces or ancient stories from the different formations, such as a crocodile and an ice-cream cone. There were colorful lights all over the cave which added to the effect, and it was a large enough cave that it took about 20 minutes to walk through. I heard some concern later from one Korean and one woman from Greece that it was not good for the cave that everybody was allowed to take pictures in it, as well as have so many people be breathing in it all at once. They were afraid the beautiful rock formations inside the cave would not survive for very long. Supposedly in Greece people aren’t allowed to take pictures inside caves for this reason. I had no idea.

What was interesting to learn is that this area is being considered one of the top Seven Wonders of the World! I would have to agree- take a look at the pictures! I can’t even describe the beauty! I would love to come back and see the sunrise here. The sunset was beautiful though as we sailed back to where we had started. It was a very relaxing day with more delicious Vietnamese food (cooked fish, spring rolls, salad, watermelon, rice, veggies, all types of seafood, and some Vietnamese beer), some great discussions with other tourists on the ship about life, traveling, Vietnam, and other countries, and it was beautiful scenery throughout the entire day.

The ride in the van on the way back to Hanoi was a lot smoother (we got a better seat!) and involved a lot of sleeping and entertaining the little kids in front of me with some funny facial expressions. When we got back to our hotel, we grabbed some food at a nearby restaurant, then headed to bed early. For some crazy reason, I agreed to book a 6:30am flight the next morning to Phu Quoc Island. Since our hotel was 45 minutes from the airport and due to a special event that was happening the next day, the staff at our hotel advised us to leave early the next morning. So we were getting a 4am wake up call! OH MY!