Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Day 6: This past Saturday, June 8th, Deven and I left Hanoi for Halong Bay. The drive was roughly 3 and a half hours, although I slept for quite some time of it. Following the scenic drive, we arrived on Tuan Chau Island and set off for Halong Bay around 12:30 after two incredibly refreshing and much needed Tiger Beers. Dad, you would love Tiger Beer. It tastes just like Stella except the emblem is way cooler...its a tiger and a palm tree. Walking onto our cruise ship, Deven and I were showered with flower pedals and escorted to our surprisingly spacious room, room number 203. We grabbed our suits, another delicious local beer, BaBaBa (333), and headed to the sun deck. Words cannot do justice to the natural beauty of Halong Bay although our pictures will hopefully give you some idea of our majestic surroundings. We cruised along the Bay of the Descending Dragon and explored fascinating caves, pristine beaches, picturesque floating villages and great rock formations rising out of the emerald water.
To give you some background information and a better idea of where exactly we were, Halong Bay is located 160km (100 miles) north of Hanoi and is an incredible complex of 3000 chalk islands rising out of the South China Sea. As I mentioned earlier, many of the islands contain unique cave formations and grottoes and remarkably, an entire culture of floating villages has evolved with interlinked boats that move from island to island.
Being the the loud and outgoing (obnoxious) Americans we (I) are, we quickly made friends with almost everyone on board. Recent graduates from Colombia, Kelsey and Andrea were our first mates on board. Interestingly enough, we compared itineraries and the four of us will be together again in Cambodia, Bangkok and on our final trip for the Full Moon Festival in Koh Phangan, Thailand. They are great girls and we look forward to meeting up with them again soon.
Swan, our cruise director, was also a pleasure--very friendly and accommodating. Per her instruction, we were able to witness and participate in a cooking demonstration during the most unbelievable sunset I have ever seen in my life. Towards the end of the night, Deven and I headed down to the back of the ship to try our hand at squid fishing, something neither of us had ever done before. The air was cool and the breeze even cooler and thus dipping our toes in the water and swaying a wooden pole back and forth with a nice BaBaBa in hand was the perfect ending to our day. We finally called it quits after a squid found itself on my line and my work there was done.
- comments