Day 08 - How long? Yep, Ha Long Bay

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It was another early morning and travel day. Today we headed to Ha Long Bay. It was a four hour drive from Hanoi to the Bay. Of course the trip didn’t need to take four hours. We drove for about 90 minutes and then had a 30 minute rest stop to hit the restroom and stop at a gift shop. The driver definitely needs the break though. Driving in Hanoi is like a full contact sport, and this driver was amazing. He was dodging cars, motor bikes, bicycles, and semi-trucks like the game Frogger. Instead of crossing the street, he was weaving in and out of traffic on both sides of the road. One of the main differences between the U.S. and Vietnam is that we drive on the right, and here they drive on both sides. It’s really crazy. However, we still haven’t seen any accidents or pedestrians going down. After another 90 minutes, we stopped again for shopping and restroom. They always get you with the shopping.

At noon we finally arrived at the quayside. We were greeted at the office with more tea. We soon boarded a small tender boat which took us about 100 yards to the big boat. It was a basic boat, not too big, not too small. There were about 20 people on board for the 2 day/1 night trip. It really seemed like all we did was eat, but there were a few activities. We had amazing meals and realized that we have had spring rolls every day, and almost every meal in Vietnam. They have all been different and really yummy. First activity was a trip to a cave. We walked through the tiny, tiny caves, and then we hiked down to the water, and to the top of the island. It is so hot at times that it gets difficult to enjoy everything, but it was really beautiful. The bay has thousands of islands we were told. But in islands we mean big ricks. The excursions off the boat are really quick unfortunately. We were at the cave for an hour, and then back to the boat for 20 minutes and then off to a beach, but only for an hour. All the tours follow the same itinerary in the same order at the same time, so everything is really crowded. The beach was no different. We hopped in the water and did enjoy a cool down for the first time in over a week. We also had a great time people watching. We couldn’t miss the two women who took pictures of each other on the beach in different Sports Illustrated swim suit issue poses. We may have had a few choice comments about them. We stayed in the water almost the entire time, a whole 60 minutes, but Lynn soon discovered that we were not alone in that water. We looked at our skin and noticed it was covered with a thin brown film of who knows what. We are now worried that we will end up on a Discovery Channel show, The Creatures Inside Me. We are sure we have a parasite or two swimming around in our bodies. We got out of the water finally and then the smell hit us. It was not a pleasant smell at all. Think diesel fuel mixed with algae mixed with dead fish. We quickly showered when we got back to the boat and made it to the top deck for happy hour and a demonstration on how to make spring rolls. Since we already learned how to do that in Saigon, we just took our drinks and lounged until it was time to eat again. We feasted on another great 5 course meal. Kirsten wasn’t too happy with her duck, so she didn’t eat it. This did not go over well with the wait staff because they remembered that she hadn’t finished her beef at lunch. They had it out for Kirsten and wanted to find out why she wasn’t eating. The staff took it personally that we were not all part of the clean plate club. After dinner we had a few drinks and then headed down for some squid fishing. Squid are attracted to bright lights shining on the water. Real squid fishermen catch them in nets. Chester and Lynn were given bamboo fishing poles and told to stand on the end of the boat and bob the hooks into the water. Once we had started this late night hunt; however, we were told that squid season is actually in the spring and we’d have to be pretty darn lucky to actually catch anything, so we handed our poles off to a few other passengers who were passing by and we all headed for bed.

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Photos

top of an Island
Sweating like pigs