Halong Bay

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Halong Bay

NOTE: Photo titles didn't label properly, and aren't in order. I don't have tim to fix this. Enjoy anyway 😊

The drive to Halong Bay took 4 hours. We were lucky to have nice sunny weather. Our room on the Phoenix Cruiser was pretty nice with its wood paneling all around, a big comfortable bed, and a bathroom with a rain shower. Walking around the boat we instantly compared things to Anh’s boat. His cruiser is much more beautiful. This Phoenix Cruiser needs a facelift. For lunch we sat with a young Russian couple who were horrible company. We tried making conversation, but we got one word answers from them and then they went back to speaking Russian between the two of them. Lunch was a feast of prawns, pork, vegetables, and rice.
Ladies in rowboats come around selling drinks and snacks at a lower cost than what you can buy it for on the boat. We bought a few beers and stocked our fridge.
After lunch we climbed into the smaller commuter boat and went to a cave. It has been ruined by trying to make it ‘friendlier’. They’ve built rock pathways, carved out parts of the roof, and spray painted all over the place. The cave itself was really big and you could venture pretty far back. Once we finished exploring the cave we got to go kayaking. It is majestic and mysterious, inspiring and imperious, words alone cannot do justice to the natural marvel that is Halong Bay, a Unesco World Heritage Site where 3000 or more incredible islands rise from the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. The vegetation covered islands are dotted with innumerable grottos created by the wind and the waves, and we got to kayak into hidden lagoons.
At dinner we decided we were going to sit at a different table in hopes to have some better conversation. We weren’t happy when we were told we had to sit at the same tables as lunch. We bought a $35 bottle of wine to help us get through it. Not being wine drinkers, we actually enjoyed the flavor quite immensely.
For some reason everyone was really tired and headed back to their rooms soon after. I fell asleep at 9:00, And Tris fell asleep shortly after.

We woke up at 5:30am in hopes to see the sunrise, but when I peeked out the window it was pouring rain so we went back to sleep. We might as well call it Rain-long bay as it poured for the rest of the day. Breakfast in the morning was buffet style. After breakfast we climbed onto the commuter boat again and dropped people off at Cat Ba Island. We headed to another area for some swimming and kayaking. Lunch was served on the boat and we went kayaking yet again. We were completely surrounded by green limestone cliffs after kayaking through caves and rocks.
Since there were only 5 of us left on the boat we were all seated together for dinner, as the new comers were being served different food. Once dinner was finished we enjoyed playing cards up on the top deck before retiring room for the evening.
We woke up again on the 3rd day to more rain. We decided to skip out on going to the ‘beautiful’ beach, and the hike up the mountain. Instead I read my book in bed and Tris watched some vids on the computer. It continued to rain the rest of the day all the way back to Hanoi.

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