Choose another map, showing:

• Hong Kong
• China
• South East Asia
• Asia
• Eurasia, Africa & Pacific
• The World

Other entries in Cát Bà

ha long bay

aka: how long bay

what a great trip - in the top 5 of the year so far, I'd have to say. spent one night on a boat in the bay and it was brilliant. the boat looks like some 1930s-ish era cris craft yaht-ish thing. maybe a little shoddier, but wood paneling galore, 3 levels, port holes, deck chairs up top. I could spend a week on this thing as long as I don't puke. we felt bad we didn't bring evening gowns for dinner.

we left the port in search of this giant cave, then putted over to a cove, set anchor and camped out for the rest of the night. that afternoon, we kayaked to a rock tunnel near by, carol caught a fish with her bare hands (never mind the fish was practically alrady dead), we jumped off the 2nd level of the boat, I swam to shore but was too afraid to touch (barnacles galore), we tried to ignore all the garbage floating in the water.

that night we set out to sleep on the upper deck but the mosquitos finally drove us inside around 1am. at least untill that point, it was uber tranquil: beautiful sunset, comets, lightening off in the distance, meditating, ipod playing the most perfect music....will never forget it.

our second day we landed on cat ba island for jungle treking. felt good to hike a bit and break a sweat (not hard given the humidity. did you know your thighs can sweat??). poor carol wore flip flops so her smile got a little smaller half-way through. but see pic below for her ingenious solution - those innovative chinese, at it again... all was good for her after that.

I slept that afternoon & that was a bummer since the next day we had to go back to hanoi. overall, the tour was strange - the company kept adding peeps then taking them away which made for a very disjointed experience. and every time you'd ask a question about what we were doing next, our guide kept saying "you don't need to worry about that." after more than a few times of this, it dawned on us that this was probably a communist thing - don't ask questions.

anywho, the price was right so can't complain, and I'd never slept on a boat before, let alone in that setting, so all was worth it!

Add to del.icio.us Add to reddit

Photos / videos of "ha long bay":