Halong Bay

I booked a trip to Halong Bay with one of the local backpackers hostels in Hanoi. They partner with the owner of a "Junk" boat called the "Jolly Roger" that takes 2-3 day cruises on the bay where the guests stay on the boat.

Our boat the "Jolly Roger"

Keels and I had planned on doing the 3 day cruise together, but with his bike breaking down and the weather (There was a tropical storm) I ended up taking the 2 day cruise alone while he got his bike situated. Halong Bay was like nothing I had ever seen before. There are over 2000 islets (limestone islands) in the bay, which have caves and channels inbetween them. Its a huge tourist attraction, so there were the "Junk" and sail boats all over the bay. The boat that we stayed on was rather nice, and geared towards a younger crowd (we had about 25 in our group). We went on a couple hour kayak trip to and walked through a limestone cave to get to an atoll like swimming area in the middle of the islet.

Islets

Kayaking around these islets was a great way to see them up close. We got to go into the small cutouts and natural tunnels that had been carved through them and basically explore.

Kayaking

 

View from the Cave

Later that night the boat had an upper deck and a bar on which we drank some Vietnamese beers and watched the sunset. The group was mostly English and/or Irish students that were on holiday so we ended up playing some interesting drinking games. It was a good, relaxing, fun evening to wind my trip down on. Every once in a while I had to look around to remind myself on where I was, and what I was doing...as we were surrounded by amazing scenery. At around midnight it started pouring rain, and has continued raining all day today. Tomorrow I leave for Bangkok and then back to the US. I will try to wrap up with one last post, and get my photos updated.