Holidays in Halong Bay

We signed up to take a boat trip through Halong Bay from Hanoi. We set out at around 8 am from Hanoi and took a 3 hour bus ride to the dock. Our boat was called the Aloha and was pretty nice! Unfortunately we did not get the exact boat we wanted because we booked it the night before, but it turned out alright. Our room had two twin beds and a bathroom - it was right over the engine but we really didn't hear it that much (since we weren't inside our room except to sleep). We headed out from the dock towards the floating village through huge limestone islands. The weather was a bit overcast which gave the scenery a real mystic feel. It was really amazing to see how the ocean just left these towering chunks throughout the water and many had caves going right through the bottom of them. They served us a great seafood lunch on the boat with squid, shrimp and crab. Ben and I immediately made a few friends on our boat since we brought a bottle of liquor to celebrate Ben's birthday and were happy to share with others (they were charging real high prices for drinks on the boat).

When we reached the floating village we took a row boat to see how the people lived out in the middle of nowhere. They had actual houses on buoys with a school house. You could tell it is a standard tourist stop since they also had a shop filled with pearl jewelry. Besides the school house there were underwater cages filled with huge fish and they also had smaller pen with an octopus, tiger fish, and some other pretty ones we didn't know. After seeing the village, those people that were just staying one night got a chance to kayak around while we relaxed on the boat deck and took in the scenery. Then the "junk" took us to our sleeping spot where we had another great seafood dinner. Ben tried fishing off the boat while we were stopped but we didn't catch anything.

The next day we kayaked through the islands and actually got to go into a lagoon that can only be accessed by a cut out cave. It was gorgeous with 360 views of just cliffs around us - it reminded me a bit of the book "The Beach". After kayaking throughout the afternoon we headed back to go to Cat Ba island. It is fairly developed with a market, National Park, stores, restaurants, and hotels. We got to stay in a really nice resort called the Sunrise Resort and they prepared a huge buffet for us along with live music to celebrate New Year's Eve. I am not sure they understand the idea of just having music in the background because it was so loud, but at least it wasn't more karaoke. The food was really good and after 3 straight meals of seafood it was nice to have a little change. An Aussie on our boat got really sick and had to leave our table after only a couple minutes. He thought it was from the seafood we had but I don't think anyone else got sick, luckily. Ben and I didn't make it to 12 for the New Year; probably a little too much partying on his birthday, but had a good time. From those of our group that stayed it didn't sound like we missed much. Apparently they were pulling people out of the crowd to chug liquor out of baby bottles. In the morning we decided to check out the "town" before we had to leave. There really wasn't much to see - I think it is more of a resort type place. We took a bus back to Hanoi where we have to stay the night before we head to Sapa.