Bai Tu Long (Halong Bay) Cruise

Mandy:

Our day started off early again with a 6:30am alarm clock. I still felt sick :( My stomach was twisting and churning the whole night. Luckily my food poisoning didn't require dashes to the washroom.. just stomach pain..

We got picked up by an Indochina Junk tour bus and we were off to Halong Bay! The ride there was pretty bad. In Vietnam, the drivers honk at each other non-stop. The worst are the big trucks honking extremely loudly every two seconds. The traffic in Hanoi is also terrible so the 183km trip takes about 4 hours. Oh and the road is also really bumpy =| We boarded our Dragon Pearl III junk and had an 8 course lunch. The weather was sunny but it was really chilly. Norm and I regretted not bringing our light weight down jackets. Instead we had to wear the warmest clothes we brought with us. Halong Bay is famous for its thousands of limestone isles and the emerald green water. The area is extremely beautiful and peaceful. The water is so calm and the route we went (Bai Tu Long) was not crowded with other junks. During our 2 day 1 night cruise we got to visit a private cave owned by our cruise company, went kayaking along the beach, and visited the largest fishing market (consists of 300 fisherman villagers). We also woke up really early on the second day to see the sunrise. I did all of this while I was still sick. Glad I was able to push through it since it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience! All in all the cruise was really good including the food, our room, the service, the scenery... the only bad part was the freezing cold shower but I guess I shouldn't have expected too much on a junk.

Loading dock

Our boat

Mandy's still sick :(

It's windy!

Lounging on the top deck

Serene and beautiful

Cave exploring

Gearing up for kayaking

=)

Sun set

Swimming in the sunset

=)

Doggie looks so sad

Sunrise

Floating fishing village

Boat ride in the water

Last meal on the ship

When we got back to our hotel in Hanoi we had dinner at the deep fried eel noodle restaurant the Hanoi Kids recommended. Norm really liked it while I thought it was interesting but not exceptional. After that we walked around the Old Quarter since it finally wasn't raining while we were in the city. We soon found out that the Old Quarter is not that large and we kept circling around the same streets. We gave up finding a nice cafe and bought some snacks at a convenience store and hung out in our hotel. At least I was starting to feel more normal =)

Deep fried eel noodles

Kitchen

Riverfront

Cathedral we found on our walk