Halong Bay

We did a 3 day, 2 night tour in Halong Bay. This is one of those touristy must-do's.
The bay is beautiful, we had very misty weather and some rain, but it just changes the atmosphere in to a different sort of ambiance. We stayed on a private beach in a bungalow for both nights, though there are several different tours to pick from that involve different activities and sometimes accommodation on the boat for a night.

They transport you from Hanoi to Halong by minivan, then you get on a boat which takes you to the island they have the bungalows at- this is right across from Cat Ba which is a good sized town (more a tourist spot filled with hotels) on Cat Ba Island. On the way we also went kayaking through one of the floating villages and around some of the islands. There were some strong currents and the paddles were heavy old metal ones with straight crummy blades (don't expect good equipment here) so this was pretty tiring. I was so excited when we caught a current going the direction we wanted through this cave above- until we got through it and I realized that we had to paddle BACK through it. But, this turned out to be one of the funniest moments. All of us in kayaks got through the cave and were realizing at the same time we had to get back through it against the current, all the while watching this small boat of people having a hard time getting through it. So, you see all of us starting to line up our kayaks to go back through, and it's like someone fired a gun for the start of the race, because the moment Jim and I decided to get paddling with all our strength to get back through, so did everyone else. So now there are about 10 kayaks headed towards this opening, that is only going to fit about 3 of us at the most to get through at a time, so some start to slow down, others pull ahead, and Jim and I are in a pretty straight line to go straight through the middle of this cave, when all of a sudden one of the boats ahead of us gets caught in the current and goes sideways, now there are about 3 kayaks trying to avoid this one, including us, which are now playing bumper-kayak in the cave, and some of us are getting pushed back out by the current while the next wave of kayaks is starting to try and get through, and then another kayak is sideways. At this point- I start laughing uncontrollably- it's one of the funniest things I've seen- made worse by the fact that I'm in it, and there's hardly anything anyone can do about it. People are trying to figure out a way around the current, trying not to run in to each other, and, trying not to waste paddle energy at the same time. It took us 3 or 4 tries to get a clear path in front of us and to get through finally. And we were some of the more consistent paddlers- those with no experience were having a much harder time. So while it was tough, this was so entertaining. Once on the island we had a BBQ dinner- this trip involved more food than I could ever consume. Each meal was like 7 courses, except breakfast, and all of it was good.

The next day we went to Lan Ha bay by boat and hiked inland til we got to a village there which we had lunch at. We were set to hike up to a peak for a view out over the bay and Cat Ba park, but it had been raining and was very muddy and slippery, and it was overcast so we weren't expecting to be able to see much, so we decided to skip the hike and head back to the island for an afternoon of relaxing on the beach. This sort of turned in to an afternoon of reading in the cabin since it was raining pretty hard but that was good too.

The last day we went to Cat Ba and saw a little of the town, and then took a minibus up to Hospital Cave and took a tour through that- this cave was used as a makeshift hospital during the wars and was never discovered by outside parties. We then picked up Mountain Bikes and biked about 12 kilometers up and down some steep hills til we got to the place we had lunch at. Another boat ride and then a bus back to Hanoi.