Halong Bay

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Ha Long Bay (literally: "Descending Dragon Bay"; Vietnamese: Vịnh Hạ Long) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and a popular travel destination, located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. Administratively, the bay belongs to Ha Long City, Cẩm Phả town, and part of Van Don district. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes. Ha Long Bay is a center of a larger zone which includes Bái Tử Long bay to the northeast, and Cát Bà islands to the southwest. A community of around 1,600 people live on Ha Long Bay in four fishing villages: Cửa Vạn, Ba Hang, Cống Tàu and Vông Viêng in Hùng Thắng commune, Hạ Long city. They live on floating houses and are sustained through fishing and marine aquaculture (cultivating marine biota).


SO I booked a 3 day trip to Halong Bay through my hostel. Didn't get off to the best start when the bus left without me and I had to run down the street after it and bang on the side for it to stop...clever!!

Our tour guide was lovely - he was called 'before' (his younger brother was called 'after'and the last one 'mistake')...met some lovely people on the bus ride. Arrived at Halong City where our guide dissapeared buying tickets for an hour while we all slowly melted but then eventually we got to get on our little boat that took us out to our 'junkie'for the night!

The views through Halong Bay are just AMAZING. We arrived on the boat and were greeted with ice cold flannels. I almost wee'd with happiness as it was sooooo hot: 45 + humidity!!!!!!!!!! Later on the boat pulled up and we all went swimming and did some jumping off the boat (OK I wussed and went from the bottom level)...after showers and grub everywone went up on the top deck to watch the sunset...was so so beautiful...something that everyone should see. Most of us stayed up there all evening - bobbing about in the middle of the bay.

The next day we went to a floating fishing villiage and everyone went Kyaking (other than me as I have a bit of fear about them after a bad experience of it in Toronto harbour!!!!) so I stayed with the bags and took pics!! It's amazing - these people just spend all their time on the water - there was even a lovely lady in a little boat who paddles over with a boat full of coke, beer, snacks and groceries you can just buy from the floating fishing stands.

We also went to the Cat Ba islands and went to the National Park, looked around the caves and then spend the night in a hotel on the Island.


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=194070&id=509419793&l=79488117c0 (some pics)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halong_Bay (Katie - some right geeky geology infor for you)

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Photos

Halong 2
Top of the boat at sunset