29-30 March 2009
A trip to Hanoi is not complete without a visit to the eight wonder of the world, touted proudly by the Vietnamese, the Halong Bay.
We signed up for the 2 Days one night with a night stay on junk with Vietnam Open tours for USD 44 per person inclusive of meals and tours.. Just excluding mineral water. We learned our lesson from the day tour the day before and we’re well prepared for our drinking source for these 2 days.
We checked out the hotel in the morning and deposited our heavy luggage with the hotel, only bring along a small bag consist of our daily changing clothes and my lappie. As I’ve tried the Pho Bo earlier, today I tried the Banh My served as breakfast and a cup of steaming hot Vietnamese Coffee. Bahn My is the French Baguette, and served with scramble egg, butter and jam. Nothing very special, I guess the street food Banh My with pate will be much better.
Our tour guide picks us from the hotel at 8am and this time is slightly difference, we are alighted to a mini bus with about 20 seats. And most of our tour mates this time are the Caucasians from States, Australia and Europe.
It took 4 hrs ride from Hanoi city to reach to Halong harbor. Though routes to Halong City will be using the Highway, but their meaning of highway is meaning 2 lanes for vehicle and its meant for all kind of transportations inclusive of the common cars, lorries, buses, bicycles, walking pedestrians, hand push cart and even buffaloes~!!! Alongside will be endless stretches of paddy fields, scatter shops selling all kind of goods.. There are a lot of bridal shops outside of Hanoi city. You’ll pass through a gigantic industrial area with familiar international brand name like Samsung and Panasonic when you enter in the Hai Phong district.
A bridge heading out of Hanoi City
Endless stretch of paddy field
After a 2 hours journey, our mini bus put to a stop for a short break at a disabled people’s workshop. Here there have all kinds of silk products, handcrafts, paintings and lacquer ware. Price is even cheaper than you can get from those bloodsucker shop owners from old quarters… but one thing that make it less attractive because its full of dust and it looks old and aged…
We continue our journey again after a short break, and at last we reach the Halong Harbor. We were told to wait by our tour guide named Vep. There’s lots of tourist waiting to board the junk for the scenic Halong bay tour. Few packages are available eg. Daily trip, 2 Days one night on junk or another extension day at Cat Ba Island. The harbor is real busy with waiting tourist, travel agents, and also reseller of tickets.. like those in Pudu bus station… While waiting, I took a walk around the harbor, it must be a peak season to visit now, cause its neither too cold or hot.. hence the harbor is full with boats of all sizes.
Halong Harbor
Row of boats docking at the Halong Harbor
We were guided to board to our boat, which park at the most end of the lot.. Our boat consist of 3 levels, the upper deck is of course for sun bathing and sea views enjoying while the boat cruising on the bay. The middle level is the dinning area and also 2 bedrooms, the lower deck consists of bedrooms for the guests and kitchen for food preparations.
Our Junkie, Tung Trang 18
Our dining area, this guy is Hido
Rooms at the lower deck
My mum relaxing on the upper deck
We just can’t wait to photo shooting once we put down our luggage. Everybody rushed to the upper deck to grab a memory of the magnificient seascape. Here I met my first friend on the boat, he’s a young traveler from Netherlands backpacking over the indo china.. (At least he’s younger than me lah) and his name is Hido! Should be a nickname… Very friendly guy, we chatted a while of Asian and not forgetting to get some info from him of Netherlands… He later joined us in the lunch…
Sailing on the Vietnamese water
After the lunch, we rushed up deck again to enjoy and relax in the nature. Halong Bay is all about breath-taking views of rocky isle and endless crystal clear greenish water. At once, I really thought I’ve come to Yunnan!!! Hahahaha
Our tour guide explained the story of Halong Bay to us. Halong bay was classified as one of the world heritage site. Halong literally meaning descending dragon for the Vietnamese. There’s a myth about this beautiful place, long ago, when the ancestor are fighting over the invaders from the north, the god from heaven send a dragon to defend their homeland, Halong Bay is where the dragon descending and spitted out jewels and gems later turned into various islets dotting the seascape. The islet formed an unnerving fortress to defense against the invaders.
The legendary Halong Bay
An islet with a pavillion on top of the hill
Drowning in the beauty of nature
Our boat then dock for a stop at one of this famous cave called the Thien Cung Cave. These caves here are famous for its spectacular stalactite and stalagmite formation. We have to take a small hikes up to enter into the chamber of the cave. The chamber are lighted up with colorful neon lights to enhanced the mysterious feel for the formation.. The Vietnamese must be having a superb imagination as they can imagine the formation as many forms of animals. The locals claimed that these giant formations are the guardian of the caves.
Brief explanation of Halong Bay
Posting with dried sea corals... very scratchy feeling..
Thien Cung Cave
This is a "every tourist must take photo" spot!
My tour guide said this is Dragon eating mushroom.. Huh?!?! Dragon eat mushroom meh?
This one pulak is door to heaven
A roaring lion
Colorful kaleidoscopic formation
Though there’s manmade pathway for the tourist, but it actually required some good stamina to walk and climb the steps.. After finish at Thien Cung, some of our gang decided not to do another perilous adventure to the grotto next to Thien Cung, I think its called Hang Dau Go. Even the tour guide abandoned us, the adventurous team, for the trekking. Nothing very special about this cave, and no proper walking path was build so we have to trek through very steep path, even climb from one small rock to the other…
Another grottoes - Hang Dau Go
All fat gained makan makan in Hanoi lost after this cave hiking..
We joined back to our team whose wandering around the souvenir stalls for some great steal and get back to our boat..
Our boat continues to cruising through its journey again and what we do is to relax ourselves in the nature once again and luxuriously spoilt in the endless spectacular views of Halong Bay.
A manmade beach..
We were given our room key soon after we back on the cruise again. Our room is a twin sharing room located at the lower deck, numbered 205. The room is so tiny but equip with necessity like fan and attached bath room.. But one thing about it, the electricity will only be provided once they switch on the generator after nightfall….
The weather at Halong bay isn’t as hot as the city, in fact, its kinda cold blew by the sea breeze, but who could resist to give up such breath taking scenery.. It’s approaching the evening soon, our boat put to a stop at a lagoon for the tourist to kayak. Rental of the kayak is not inclusive in the package, additional of USD5 each.. I am not too favor for kayaking as it requires a lot of energy… I am a damsel you know!!!!! And mum is scared of water… so, we just wandering around the floating fish market while the others kayak away from us… The fish market here sells fresh caught seafood and you can actually bought it and cook by your chef in your boat. F.O.C. But the fresh seafood price kills you!!!
We stop at this isle with fishing village for kayaking
Mantis Prawn for sale..
Crabbie
Cuttlefish
Mobile 7-11
While waiting for the others for the 1 hr kayaking, I have nothing better to do than sitting in the dining area all by myself updating my blog and snacking this..
It’s a roast peanut in can, but pay a little bit more attention on the upper left corner of the bottle, it’s a Pepsi product!! I didn’t know Pepsi even manufacture NUTS!
Our boat sails to a peaceful lagoon and anchored to stay a night there… Many other junkies join us too
Hido did a jump dive from the top deck to swim in the water but I just didn’t manage to catch his act in camera! Wasted!!!!! We the scady cats are not brave enough for jump dive and swim, what we do are just waiting for the sunset and captured this magnificent moment.
Our junk anchored here for the night.
Here are the sunset~
Tonight we separated for dinner, we joined with the Vietnamese family with a daughter… this Vietnamese mother is really patient in taking care of her child.. Carefully feeding rice and dishes for her daughter… how touching… There’s nothing else you can do in the pitch dark Halong Bay.. The Caucasian gang got themselves into a drinking night and Hido even plan to sleep on the upper deck instead of warmth bed… He must be a joker!!!
Though they switch on the electricity for you, but hot water for shower is upon request.. we have to ask the boat man for the hot shower!!! T’eh and S’eh didn’t know about it and they ended up bathing with icy cold water in this kind of freezing cold weather. We thought of staying a while at the upper deck looking at the starry nights, but the weather is just too cold to bear with and what I have is only a thin sheet of long sleeve t-shit!!! So, I just did my mask and fall into my dreamland while mummy continues her drama series stored in my lappie till the battery flat. I dare not charge it as the current doesn’t seems very stable.. Electricity will be shut off once it reaches midnight…
I wake up without a single volt of electricity the next morning; we can only open up the curtain to get some dim light from the dawn for us to pack our things and washing. Thus I end up like this. Putting on the lenses has becoming the most difficult task for me to do..
Early next morning... I looked extremely tired
We didn’t manage to catch sunrise as we are surrounded by a stretches of rocky islet. But this most scenic wallpaper like scenery has welcomed me to the day at Halong Bay.
The spectacular view of Halong Bay welcome our morning.
We were served bread and egg as breakfast and fruits, have to order coffee separately! After breakfast, we were urged to check out as our boat is sailing towards Cat Ba island to drop some tourist who booked another day stay at Cat Ba and fetch some back to the Halong city shore.
Cat Ba Island... A few tourists from our junk were spending their night here
While our boat cruising nearer to the Cat Ba, we spotted some floating houses belongs to the fishing villager. They’ve got no electricity, not a single luxury appliances like we have back at home, area of house also as big as a room and they did have to suffer in fear during the thunder storm in the shaky house on the water… Their only assets are the fishing boats for the men in the house, and a sampan for the women to sell groceries to the tourist on junk. Everyone in the family regardless the age have to work to earn for the living, I even notice a young boy still sailing his sampan trying to sell things to the tourist where the bay is all dark last night all he have is his tiny torch and a sampan full of goods! This is so sad for me, as we are too pampered in our lifestyle that we took many things for granted.
Total Belonging of a fishing villager.
We are paused at the Cat Ba dock for quite a long while as the captain is waiting for one of his relative to board the boat.. What an excuse!
Our itinerary this morning is only cruise pass the infamous towering karsts islet that form a mystical maze to Halong bay on our way back to the Halong harbor and taking the 4 hrs ride back to Hanoi City.
The Kissing rock (The tour guide description is cock fighting rock)
Very famous piece of rock formation in Halong Bay. Appear in their Paper Note
We alighted the boat and our tour guide guided us to have our lunch in this Thang Long Restaurant. This is the most sumptuous meal through out so many days in our tour. I spotted this super disgusting wine at the cashier counter.. the ingredients is sooo poisonous and disgust to maximum for anyone who dare to drink it.
Cobras, scorpions, gecko and even sparrow with feathers… ewwwwww
We had our lunch at this Thang Long Restaurant
A leather shop... What?!?! they sell croc skins in a full piece?
This super pursuative women is selling pearls to the tourist.
We were then transfer to a smaller van for our road journey back to Hanoi. We made a stop at the same disable workshop again, I actually did bargain for an Ao Zai the day before and this time once he saw me, he lower the price again for me… yet, I still didn’t buy it lah!!! I bought a box of Green Bean cookies as recommended by my tour guide as souvenir for my colleagues. Not expensive though, a big box is only 20k Dong.
We reached Hanoi city at about 4pm and we decide to rest till dinner time at the hotel.. I am luckier today as I manage to caught my bb on msn and we did video cam for a while… be understandable lah, I will especially miss him when I am away in any part of the world..
We walk many miles to one of the famous food court call Quan An Ngoc near to the Trang Thien Plaza for our dinner… At least tonight we tasted a variety of the Vietnamese delicacies before leaving. A short walk back to final shopping at Intimax Supermarket and we spend our remaining Dongs going for Vietnamese massage near my hotel. The full body massage cost 136k Dong (USD 8)/ hour… My lady masseur wasn’t doing a very good job… I still prefer my Chinese masseur, Winnie back in Nail Jewels, Tropicana… She’s best!
The massage did give a temporary relaxation to us after few days of tours.. We walk back to the hotel and packed our luggage and prepare to go back tomorrow. BB didn’t go online as well as promise!!! And I waited for him
