Halong Bay...you get what you pay for

After a fabulous trip to Sapa, we went a bit cheap on our Halong Bay trip and it showed. I guess you get what you pay for here in Vietnam. It started with a long minibus ride from Hanoi to Halong City. Its only 160km, but took us over 4 hours to make the trip. It can be difficult to get around here in Vietnam due to the mind-boggling number of motorbikes, mopeds, and scooters that line the streets. Add to that the fact that we're in the middle of the Tet holiday and it'll take over 4 hours to go 160km. More on the traffic in a later blog.

CJ and I didn't even have real seats for the journey, just the fold down type in the middle of the aisle. We arrived in Halong City and about 50 of us piled onto the boat that was supposed to hold 16 max. We weren't sure how everyone was going to get a cabin to sleep in, but we weren't worrying about it just yet. We had to make a french couple move over so we could fit at the table for lunch as we set out to check out Halong Bay.

Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Not only is it aesthetically spectacular with over 3000 islands, but its also culturally interesting as there are hundreds and perhaps thousands of Vietnamese living on the waters of Halong Bay. They make a living by fishing and selling things to tourists. Most have aquaculture pens surrounding their homes, which are literally on the water. Pretty crazy place to live, and just about each home came with a guard dog.

Our first stop in the Bay was a huge cave on one of the islands. I don't know much more about the cave as our tour guide wasn't much help. CJ and I felt that the cave may have been used as human habitation hundreds or maybe even thousands of years ago, but our tour guide said it had only been discovered in 1989. Don't think we believe that, but we stopped asking questions after that response. Maybe that's what he was hoping for.

After the cave we headed further into the islands towards Cat Ba Island. We were meant to sleep on the boat the first night, but as there were too many of us, we slept on Cat Ba Island the first night. Cat Ba Island is surprisingly large for being so far out in Halong Bay. There are many hotels, restaurants and karaoke bars lining the streets. We had dinner at the hotel and took a stroll down the main street. The local delicacy appeared to be some sort of gecko wine. Literally dead nearly footlong gecko's crammed into bottles of "wine". As tempting as that sounds, we didn't try any.

After breakfast the next morning, we went hiking in the Cat Ba Island National Park. At the top of the mountain there were great views of the surrounding islands. It was a cool day and a bit foggy, which gave the islands a mystic aura. After hiking we had lunch and took a nap before heading back to the boat for a kayaking expedition. For being a World Heritage Site, the waters in Halong Bay are not pristine. Probably due to the large number of inhabitants on the water and tour boats in the area. We kayaked around for about 45 minutes, checking out the islands up close and making the dogs bark at us. As we headed back toward Cat Ba Island we made a quick stop at Monkey Island for some folks to have a look at a monkey or two. We refrained. We then went back to Cat Ba Island to settle in for the night.

As I mentioned there were more people than the boat could handle so during the previous day our tour guide and other tour guides were making up stories to try to get people to stay at the hotel instead of on the boat. Stories ranged from a large storm brewing, to rats on the boat, possibly sinking boats, and horrible food. Some of the stories must have worked because come bedtime, there were 16 people on the boat and everyone had a pillow.

The next morning we headed back to Halong City, waited around for an hour before eating lunch and hopping back on the minibus for Hanoi. On the way back we were one seat short so I ended up sitting up front between the driver and passenger seat on a cushion. Quite comfy, but I would've done a mighty superman impression had the brakes been needed in a hurry. Saw a cockfight on the side of the road during our pitstop.

Once back in Hanoi we had 2 hours to collect our things, get cleaned up, get our train tix and get to the train station in time for our 7pm train from Hanoi to Hue. And the journey continues...photos finally up!