Halong Bay (Vietnam)

Halong Bay (Wed 2nd Dec)

We left Hanoi nice and early as it was a 3-4 hour drive east to Halong Bay along one of the busiest, sketchiest roads you have ever seen!  Fortunately we both managed to get a good cat nap in so we missed most of it!

When we finally got to Halong Bay harbour, we realised that we really had hit the tourist trail, as their were hundreds and hundreds of tourists like ourselves, on tours like us, waiting for their junk boats.

For those of you who dont kno, Halong Bay is a bay with lots of craggy limestone towering islands dotted for miles into the horizon, some tiny, some very big.  There are over 3000 of these islands.  Initially, from the harbour we could not see any of the islands as there was a sea mist.

We eventually boarded our junk boat, the Hai Au.  It was a little bit tired but the room we got was immaculate for a junk boat.  All the walls were a thick dark wood, almost like mahogany with iron like decoration on the ceiling.  Chris was very happy as it was twin beds, meant he could have a decent nights sleep lol!

We set off straight away into the horizon, everybody onboard was on the roof eagerly awaiting the looming islands.  About 20 minutes out of the harbour, and the mist began to clear.  And oh the beauty!  It was just a magestic view that left you speechless.  No wonder it is a world heritage site.  We’ll put some pictures up below, but they just don’t do it any justice!

As you can, initially, even though it was 1pm, the sea mist was still quite thick.

A shop in the middle of the bay!

Chris at the top of the boat with the islands towering over him.

Our first stop on the boat was to one of the many caves that there are in all these islands.  We saw Surprise Cave (discovered only in 1901) which was used by the Vietcong as a hideout during the war with the Americans.  The cave consisted of 3 chambers, with the last being the largest.  There were also writings all over the walls, the oldest we saw was 1911!  Some was in Chinese, some in Roman alphabet.  But bearing in mind the cave was all lit up for our entertainment, it would have been a very dark scary place back then!

 

The writing on the stones, on the left from 1911 and on the write it is in Chinese talking about dreams.

  View from the top of the caves.

 

We got back onto our boat, and we headed off for an afternoon of activities, kayaking and swimming.  The kayaking was great fun, especially trying to stay out of the way of the boats in the busy parts of where we were based (our camera crashed when we were out kayaking so not many pics of the beautiful sights we saw).  When we got back to the boat, the sun had already started to go down, and the water had been cold when we were kayaking, so we both chickened out of swimming lol! Some of our fellow sailors took part though.

 

A floating house amongst the islands and Naomi paddling towards a cave.

The sunsetting while we were kayaking and Callum (Aussie no 1) jumping off the roof of the boat for a quick dip!

We stayed on the junk boat for the rest of the evening, watching the sun go down, having dinner, enjoying good company, and eventually, after a tiring day, retiring to our cabins for a well earned rest.

The sunset.