Halong Bay Junk Trip

26 March
We arrived back in Hanoi around 4:00a and our guide and driver were waiting for us.  They took us back to the hotel we stayed at before and we had to wake up the staff to let us in.

We were able to rest for an hour or so, get showered and have breakfast before we get back on the road again.

This time we had a 3.5 hour drive to Halong Bay.  Along the way we stopped at the Center for Humanities which supports disabled and disadvantaged  people from the area through vocational training.  Basically a souvenir shop.  By noon we arrived at the Bay and were taken by small boat to the Indochina Sails Junk.

Halong Bay consists of over 2000 mysterious limestone 'islands' that arise from the sea.  The name Halong translates to 'where the dragon descends into the sea'. 

The boat that we were on was one of the newer Junks and was very nice.  We were given the best rooms on the ship and they were very luxurious.  We had a separate bath and shower.  The bath was a jacuzzi tub!

The whole ship had a very luxurious 1930's art deco feel to it.  The food was very good and after the over night train ride we were all very tired and slept very well.

We sailed around the bay after lunch and visited an island that had a lookout point that had about 400 stairs that Karel and Mike climbed.  It was very crowded with tourists.  We then sailed to a floating fishing village that was quite interesting.  The people of the village, including the children would paddle their little boats over to ours and try to climb up the side to sell us shells, food and other trinkets.  We took some good pictures of these little urchins.

After that we watched the sunset over the bay.  We returned back to the ship for dinner and a good night's sleep.

The next morning we got up early for Tai Chi at 7:00a on the top deck.  It felt good to exercise and get ready for our next stop which was 'Surprise Cave' where we had to hike up 100 steps to get to the mouth of the cave.

The cave had 3 chambers, each bigger than the previous.  After that we went back to the boat and had a big breakfast while the boat sailed back to the harbor and our flight to Danang.

Deb & Karel