Halong Bay

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It must have been around noon when we looked out into the majestic Halong Bay- well- at least as far as we could see. Due to the fog we could only see as far as 100m at max.

So our spirits weren’t any higher than early this morning when we were picked up around 0800 and started our trip- together with 10 other people. Hanoi was grey and it was drizzling again and the weather didn’t change much on the 3 hours drive. At least it stopped drizzling at the bay.

When we finally departed with our ship we had a very nice seafood lunch and after about 20 min. we where actually wondering if the ship was moving or the captain simply kept the engines running to make us believe we are moving thru the beautiful scenery of Halong Bay since we couldn’t see a thing.

But after we had finished all the food we saw some of the islets which stick out of the sea like gargantuan… lime stones.
Due to the fog it had a very quite atmosphere, the air was filled with secrecy and expectations alike and it really made for a good start of the trip.

For those of you that don’t know anything about the Halong Bay, here some fast facts:

Halong Bay lies in the north eastern part of Vietnam in the South Chinese Sea.
It is part of the Gulf of Tonkin and you will have to picture around 3000 islands and islets that soar sky wards from the emerald waters. They are sparsely forested and beaches are rare.

The legend goes that a dragon descended into the sea from the mountains (Ha Long = descending dragon) made all the little islands with his flailing tail.
Halong Bay was declared world heritage in 1994.

As we slowly drove thru the waters we got to know all the rest of the passengers.
We had a French (…) couple on board, one English couple (is that really better than the French…), one Australian couple and a total of 6 Germans (good lord- they seem to be everywhere…). All in all a nice crew and I think we all enjoyed one another’s company.

As the day progressed the visibility got a bit better so in the end we were able to see some 500m perhaps. We anchored at one of the islands to visit a huge cave which was formed by wind and waves and was nicely illuminated.
It was called surprise cave because you could see many faces and figures in the stalagmites and stalactites- for some you really needed the playful imagination of a Vietnamese…

Also we stopped at another Island to climb atop and “enjoy” the view from above. After finishing all that we got back to the boat and prepared ourselves for dinner (shit, shower, shave…). When everybody was full we had a few beers and the Aussie found a little bottle of cognac in his travel back which we all shared and easily emptied.

As we all got talking we wondered where one of the other Germans had ventured and not soon after we heard him!?!
What we hadn’t realized before was the fact that the ship-owners had a karaoke machine on board-
YES!!!


Soon enough we were making sure that no one in the bay could sleep.
Eventually some guys from a different boat came over and joined in the “terribly- good” singsong sing-along.
When we turned the karaoke machine off we sat on the roof of the boat to continue chatting and we hoped the weather would stay the way it was since we had an almost clear sky with moon and stars etc.

It all got very late and sometime early next morning we got into our beds on board. Next morning we all got up fairly early because at 0900 we got onto land at Cat Ba Island. Unfortunately the mist covered everything again.

Cat Ba is the largest island in all of Halong Bay and we were about to visit the national park on it. We had a nice walk thru the woods but since the weather wasn’t much better than the day before we couldn’t enjoy the view as much as we probably would have if the visibility would have been from pole to pole. And again we visited another cave.

After that we drove into Cat Ba town to check into our hotels. Quick lunch and we were off to go kayaking. Nice surprise- the weather got good and we got some sunshine whilst paddling all quite thru the majestic surrounding. Seems French people never learned how to use a kayak so waiting for them became a major part of the tour. We also visited some boat people who only live in houses that swim- they had fish farms and we got an idea of what their life looks like.

After we returned to Cat Ba town we were ready for dinner and after that we went for a walk and finished a nice evening by sitting on the rooftop of the hotel overlooking the bay and drinking some more beers.

Next morning we made our way back to the ship and after we boarded we made our way back towards Halong City. One last time we were enjoying the impressive views.
We really had a very nice 3 days tour but still we were looking forward to what awaits us at our next destination- Sapa.

It’s time to move on- have a good one!

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