Halong Bay

Halong Bay is a beautiful area in the north of the country. Made up of thousand of limestone islands, it also have inhabitable islands (Cat Ba Island) and caves to explore. I went on an overnight tour with Irish, Dutch, Danish, French, and NZ tourists, 12 in total.

Me, Bjorn and Kees (Dutch), Danish girl, Catherine from Ireland

First there was the bus ride from Hanoi to Halong. After we picked up everyone from their hotels, we headed through the always crowded city streets - when we reached a shop that was jam packed with people! We approached slowly get around the crowds, and as we slowly passed what looked like a florist, we could see lots of cameras and crew, and people in pairs! I saw one couple running away from the shop, and it looked like the female had an amputated leg, and as they ran off, a camera crew was quickly following! So it looked like they were filming a leg of the Amazing Race! So if you watch the next season, look for a white van on the street - that's me! Wish I could have got out of the bus, and helped one of the teams...

After one pit stop, the 3 hr ride arrived in Halong, we found our boat, and we were off. As the government really has worked out how to get people off the pier and into the boats, it was pretty chaotic, but that's how it is everywhere, so we were all pretty accustomed to it.

The "junk" (as they call the boats) slowly made its way through the bay, and we passed through the "floating village", with people who live, work, and even go to school in a small cove with boats. They earn a living by fishing, and have done so for generations. They refuse to live on the land even though they have been offered by the government.

The 'floating school'

The first stop was some large caves. After that we did a little kayaking in completely dead water, and then went for a full swim.

View from outside the caves, the tourist boats below

Next day more swimming (the jump off the boat were good fun, check out the photos), then back to the boat. Another day and we would have explored Cat Ba Island and biked around, but I didn't have time. Back to Hanoi.

Attempted synchronised diving off the boat - I think we picked up a few deductions on takeoff

I caught up on lots of sleep on the boat, which was nice. Didn't get a great deal of sleep on the plane.

For more pictures, you can see a slideshow at:
www.flickr.com/photos/sneakykangaroo/
72157594157079697/show/ (copy & paste this link)

You can see all my pictures from everything (including stuff I written about yet) at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/sneakykangaroo/

DN