Vietnam – Day 4 – Halong Bay

So I decided that instead of rushing the mechanic and possibly not having the bike ready for a trip to Halong Bay, I would take the bus. I would have Wednesday to test out the repairs. In hindsight this was a great decision. Yesterday morning I noticed that the streets were really slippery from multiple layers of oil residue and a light morning sprinkling. Today in Hanoi there was even more rain. The trip on a bike would have been much longer and much more treacherous.

Around 7:30, a tour guide showed up at my hostel. He asked that I follow him. We ran out the door and trotted a few blocks to where the bus was “making rounds”. We hopped on the bus almost as it was moving. The bus proceeded to drive around the city with the guide hopping off the moving bus and running ahead to gather up the rest of the tour participants. Once everyone was on board…half an hour later we started towards Ha Long.

Along the way we drove over the red river, rice paddies and other beautiful landscapes.

About half way we stopped at a rest stop and typical retail tourist trap. Prices were pretty cheap but I wasn’t going to buy and marble statues. You can see what I did buy below. 🙂

When we got to Halong Bay there we lots of tourist buses in what appeared to be an abandoned tourist destination. Shells of hotels stood at the entrance as we navigated through the parking lots.

 We quickly boarded our boat and had lunch on the way through the bay. It was a great feast. I sat with a very nice Korean family. The early twenties girls were snapping selfies like crazy. It was really amusing.

The water was calm in the bay and the sites were amazing.

We made three stops. The first was an island with the cray huge cave system, Hang Sung Sot

From there we went to an island  where the entrance to a bay was through a cave, Hang Luon. I got to kayak around the inner lake. It was really peaceful except for the Korean tourists chanting some patriotic type songs. Or were they Korean party songs?

The last stop was Titov Island, named after Russian Cosmonaut Titov. Apparently he is a hero in Vietnam, providing fighter jet training to the north during the Vietnam War. Titov Island has amazing views from the top and a sandy beach below.

On the way back as the sun was setting I noticed that the karst spires kind of looked like a multi-humped dragon.

When I got back to Hanoi I sought out a restaurant that made fresh (not fried) summer rolls. I found a highly rated one. The video below is pretty cool as she makes them.