Halong Bay

Mother Nature for the win! Halong Bay is easily the most impressive thing I have seen so far on my trip. My tour group headed east today via a 4 hour private bus ride. Halong Bay is a massive chain of limestone island rock formations. There are thousands of these island-y formations, and the plan was to navigate through a portion of them via boat.

When we first arrived in the area, I was a little apprehensive as we drove up to a pier that was crawling with multitudes of tourists. I wasn't thrilled about having to elbow my way to take pictures, or having to deal with strangers. But luckily, we were whisked away on a boat of our very own! The boat was of comfortable size that could easily accommodate twice the number of people we had. Benches and tables lined the first floor, and a deck was available above.

We're on a boat!

Lunch was served almost immediately after we were seated, and featured about 8 courses in all. Some highlights:

Crab stuffed with crabmeat, scallops, squid

Poached jumbo prawns

Squid stir-fry

The food was tasty, and of a higher quality than expected. It wasn't mindblowing though, and the best dishes were the ones prepared simply (poached prawns, steamed whole fish).

As we finished lunch, we arrived at the nearest rock islands which were impressively big next to our little boat.

Entering the bay

A fishing village is located right on the water, and supports a population of 300 people. Various boats paddled by with fresh fruit to sell, but our focus was getting out and into the kayaks so we could explore the beautiful scenery around us!

Imagine living on the water!

I actually was thinking about skipping the kayaking excursion, but was finally swayed by a fellow tour member. I AM SO GLAD I WENT. It was the most amazing feeling, being on the water and surrounded by dozens of enormous rock formations on all sides. Every corner rounded brought on a new scene that took my breath away. It's hard to describe or even photograph the pure scale of what I saw... it just struck me as I sat there, that I was so so lucky to be paddling a kayak in Vietnam looking at nature's work of art.

That being said... there ARE pictures, and some of me in the kayak too. They are, however, on my fellow tour member's camera so will have to be uploaded another day.

After about an hour of kayaking, we continued on to view some caves on foot. Halong Bay caves were naturally formed by thousands of years of dripping rain water and underground springs; most of the stalactites were easily 20 or 30 feet in height. It was a beautiful area to walk through, eerily shadowed with random birds chirping in the background. The one kooky thing I wasn't a big fan of was that they decided to light the caves in colors. This made the formations look a little cheesy sometimes rather than impressive. I really wish they just stuck to white/yellow lighting.

It was nearing 5pm by the time the boat headed back to shore. It was perhaps my second (maybe third; who's counting?!) best moment of the day as I sat on the upper deck on a lounge chair and relaxed while watching the rock islands pass by.

My hotel room tonight was a little less fancy, but still big and spacious.

The attraction though, is the beautiful view from the window!

In some ways, I can't believe that I have only been here for 3 days. I've already seen so much! And luckily, I am really liking the tour group; everyone has remained cool to hang out with. There's a really good mix of ages and personalities, which keeps things interesting. We are gearing up towards some major together time over the next few days though. There's a 4 hour drive back to Hanoi tomorrow morning, and then we board a train for an overnight trip (I think 12 or 14 hours) to Hue. Not sure what to expect for the train, but it should be interesting!