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Published: October 17th 2011
Halong Bay…..what can I say!! Absolutely beautiful. If you ever get the chance this is a must see destination on your itinerary, the photos do not do it justice and the beauty and serenity are endless. We departed our hotel at about 8.15am for the 3.5 hour journey (it’s only 180kms) and boarded our “junk boat” The Dragon Pearl #3 owned by Indochina Junk. Not a bad boat but a few improvements could happen. But would highly recommend it anyhow. Lunch was served once we had boarded the junk boat and it was certainly plentiful. Plenty of course and very tasty! We set sail and headed for the very secluded islands in Halong Bay, there are thousands of islands to look at and you spend all day just cruising and staring at their beauty.
Once we had been sailing or cruising depending what you want to call it, approx. 3 and bit hours, we anchored at our first destination and got to do a kayaking tour around one of the islands for about an hour. We weren’t so good at it!! Lol And well, they weren’t designed for my big butt!! Lol But we did it anyways and it was great
to get up close to the rock islands. When back on board the boat you could go for a swim but I (Kattie) wasn’t so keen on that! I don’t really like those big fish with teeth you could say. So we opted for a drink instead!
Dinner was lovely again, we had seafood which was prawns, a sand crab and oysters and they were all really tasty and we are pretty sure everyone enjoyed it. It was early to bed for most around 9-9.30pm and what a great sleep it was….with a big sleep in as breakfast wasn’t until 8.30am.
We did another kayaking tour to a private beach and this tour was about 30 minutes. Paul went for a swim and I had a little paddle, we relaxed on the beach before kayaking back to the boat for another amazing lunch! The food is just so good on the junk boat! After lunch we go to go to a floating fishing village and we were taken there by the village people in their wooden paddle boats.
This was a wonderful experience and one we will never forget. We visited with the chief and drank herbal tea and tried
rice wine (the rice wine is so strong and something you won't forget trying in a hurry!)
We also went and visited the little school, there were only about 8 kids in the school and they were so cute learning their writing. We went and seen how the fishing village people live and we were allowed to go into the chief home and check out the bedrooms and living room. the chief lives with his wife and four children, who share two room. There are no mattresses only floor boards!
We bought a nice little painting from the craft shop and overall was one of our favourite places we have been to so far. Dinner was very special that night with a romantic candle light dinner in a cave. What a setting for our last night in Halong Bay.
The boat trip back seemed to go too fast and we are so glad that we got to meet some really interesting and well travelled people who are lovely to talk too.
The bus ride back to hanoi took forever but we had a great afternoon on Hanoi walking around and buying a few things.
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Julieann and Ken
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Love the photos certainly an experience not to be missed and looks like you are having a great time, keep up the photos and story, love it.