Halong Bay - A Natural Wonder of the World






We took a day trip from Hanoi to visit the world famous Halong Bay. Halong Bay is about 100 miles east of Hanoi, and is famous for its rock formations. We booked a tour for this one, which included a boat cruise, a visit to a couple of caves, lunch, and a stop at a floating village in the middle of the bay. The bay was extremely beautiful, as you can tell from the pictures. We enjoyed the day, and met some nice kiwis (New Zelanders) on the boat to share our time with.

We started the day out by hopping in a 15 passenger van, which was definitely designed for smaller people than us. Needless to say, we were squished! The driver seemed to be of the “ying and yang” variety, using both the gas and break at the same time, causing a few of the children aboard to lose their lunches. Hence, no tip for that driver. The highway we were on was pretty wild, and I was sure we were going to get into an accident, but alas, we arrived safe and sound!

Lunch, the boat and the bay were incredible. The small floating village was interesting to see, but the funniest part of the day was the tour through the caves. For almost an hour, our “tour guide” walked us to different places in the cave, and with a laser pointer showed us vague shapes in the rocks, and then talked about what the “locals” thought they were, giving each a mystical and spiritual description. It was more than a bit over the top though, and turned out to be really funny.

Seriously though, the place was great. Enjoy the pictures!


Laura and a rice paddy.

Some workers in a rice paddy.

A common roadside stall.

Picture of Hanoi.

A church outside of Hanoi

A cow on a motorbike. Yes it was alive. Yes the video is on Youtube.

Some of the landscape on the way to Halong Bay.

Eric at the Halong Bay terminal.

Laura and our boat.

Some people trying to sell us flowers.

A pic of the Halong bay landscape.

Eric and Halong Bay.

Laura and Halong Bay

A pic of the floating village and the surrounding mountains.

Eric and Key Island. It is famous and on the 200,000 dong bill.

Laura and Halong Bay

A cool pic of some of the rocks

A good pic of the Vietnam flag and Halong Bay behind.

Another pic.

Some junks and Halong Bay

Eric and an island

Eric going into one of the caves

Eric in the cave

The sign says, "Not allowed to climb up, scrape down and draw into the stalagmite." So Eric is drawing into the rock here.

Some rock formations in the cave.

Eric and the guide.

Laura in the Jungle on an island

Eric and some of the other Junks
Eric in the cave

And a couple of YouTube videos!








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chicago~Two Years in The Windy City

Image
We moved to Chicago in 2009, after completing our four month honeymoon around the world. Eric attended Kellogg School of Management, earning his MBA and MEM while Laura spent time dabbling in taking writing classes, leading social clubs and running her own online business. The two years that we spent in Chicago have proven memorable and we throughly enjoyed our time in the mid-west. We did not travel too much while in Chicago due to Eric's demanding school schedule, but there were a few domestic trips here and there. Below is a photo montage documenting our past two years. Around Evanston and Chicago with Kellogg friends: With the JV's visiting the aquarium! Kickin it with some Kellogg folks In Wrigleyville with JDB and Mas Us at Kellogg enjoying a TG Laura and Silvia doing Christmas shopping TGIF at Kellogg.  Free beer for everyone! Judging the contests with the JV's! With Davy and Audrey, out and about! Shopping at the farmers market with Sylvia 90's party...
Read more

Cairo

Image
We spent the next three days hanging out in Cairo, relaxing after our big tour and preparing for India. We had a few nice meals, caught up on some business, and recouped some of our strength. The culture here in Egypt is very different. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in Islamic Cairo, where we walked around one day. Islamic Cairo is filled with Mosques from the 900’s, and lot of buildings from the Mameluke period (1500’s) which is beautiful in its own right. We went into a mausoleum and the Al-Azhar mosque, but mostly just toured around the neighborhood a bit, looking at the different shops and traditional crafts being made. Just about every woman in Cairo is covered head to toe, with only their face showing. Some are dressed all in black, and even have their faces covered with only eye holes, or a thin black cloth covering their entire face, so that even their eyes cannot be seen. On first glance, it is quite shocking, and it took some getting used to, especially for Laura who i...
Read more

Venice - Paddling Away in the Canals

Image
Venice was beautiful, but also at times we found could be a bit overwhelming. We took a night train from Naples, two hours south of Rome, all the way up to Venice, which is in the northeast of Italy. It was a long trip, from 8PM to 5:30 AM. We had reserved couchettes, or fold down beds, so that we could sleep on the train. Despite what we had thought, it was pretty hard to sleep on the train. It had frequent stops, swayed, and was louder than expected. Since we were in a four bed compartment, we were also joined at about 12:30 AM by a confused Italian girl. Getting to Venice at 5:30 AM with not to much sleep, we struggled a bit to find the correct water bus to our hotel. One we arrived, after climbing the 3 flights of stairs to reception, we were graciously allowed us to drop our things off for the day, since check in wasn't until the afternoon. They also allowed us to freshen up, since we had been on the go since leaving ome the day before. Our first impression of Venice was that ...
Read more