Travels in SE Asia: Ha Long Bay

Ha Long Bay is a world heritage area of spectacular seascapes and nearly 2000 small vertical limestone islands about 170km east of Ha Noi.

We took a 4 hour bus ride along a rudimentary freeway out of Ha Noi and then through small rural towns to the city of Ha Long, past half finished buildings...

...to a half way Happy House stop at a ceramics works, where Kirsty painted her name on a bespoke plate and we drank green tea:

We walked around the ceramics display (there were plenty to choose from) where the staff demonstrated the strength of the ceramic by bashing one item with another, until one broke, that is:

The larger ceramic items were transported the traditional way:

At Ha Long port we boarded our boat which was exclusive our group’s for a 24 hour cruise amongst the misty islands, including an overnight stay in cabins below deck with a superb evening meal and as many drinks as we were prepared to pay for.

Our boat was called the...., well you can read it for yourselves:

It wasn’t all that flash, clean and shiny, and a little bit old and tired but it did the job. The dining room was spacious, with A/C and a bar at the far end:

Our cabin with a sea view, basic but adequate, with a shower etc:

It had a nice upper deck for lounging on:

With sails if necessary:

And a Captain at the wheel:

The view forw’d as they say, as we headed out into the bay:

M&M relaxing on their sea cruise:

We passed floating villages of fisherfolk:

Some of whom set out to sell us things from little round coracles:

A myriad of islands rolled past on a flat sea:

We stopped off on Danh Sach Island where we were asked to “join Hands in Preserving Ha Long bay as a Natural Wonder of the World”.

We didn’t do that but it is a special place and we visited the quite magnificent Sung Sot Caves.

There were a lot of other houseboats in the bay all doing much the same thing, and the world famous caves are half way up a cliffside, hundreds of steps up, to test our cardio-vascular systems, but the views at the rest stops were spectacular:

Plenty of tourist boats jostled for landing areas:

After the cave trip Mark and I and 5 other group members went on a 2 hour kayaking trip with a crew member as a guide.

Just as well too as the boat sailed over a km away while we were paddling and we got very wet, me more than most since I slipped between the kayak and the boat getting out of the kayak and got even wetter.

Before getting wet:

Getting wetter:

We paddled thuogh this tunnel into a large lagoon:

After getting very wet:

After drying off and having a well earned drink dinner was served, including prawns and stuffed crabs:

After dinner we took our drinks and lounged on the rooftop sea deck in the warm evening air. No deck quoits here though:

The next day, the weather was full-on, fog-horn sounding sea fog and there was nothing at all to see, all the islands disappeared as we ate breakfast and pondered the return journey.

But the Captain somehow navigated our way back to Ha Long port without any form of technology except an old compass. No GPS, no radio, no depth sounder etc, but I guess he had done it hundreds of times before so we weren’t too concerned.

On the bus trip back to Ha Noi, we checked out the roadside items of interest:

A bread seller on the side of the freeway: