Day 1 of Halong Bay:
We woke up at 6:30a to make sure we had time to pack, get some breakfast, look for an open mart to buy toothpaste (I couldn't bring it on the plane to Hanoi; on that note, I had completely forgotten that I had my cologne packed in my bag, so the BKK security had to confiscate it. I won't lie, I was pretty disappointed by that) then finally get breakfast (Pho) at a nearby stand before boarding our 8:00a bus to Halong Bay. The bus ride was about 3 1/2 hours long and half of it was listening to one of the tour guides (thankfully, not ours) talk about how it is a good thing that most of the groups had "big, strong men" to protect the "lovely lady" from the "big Chinaman" who would hurt them. When Bryan shut the window, he commented: "You see?! It is very good you have a stong man to do this. Very easy for the man, so the woman does not need to worry." Obviously, this is a cultural thing, but everyone on the bus laughed awkwardly about it.
Once we made it to the harbor, we bought some more snacks (as snacks would've been a little more expensive from this point on. We all boarded a small boat, and my first thought was, "Yeah. This is where we'll be sleeping. We spent all of that money to sleep here? Yeah, okay. I can believe that." Have my standards lowered this much? I mean...I have readjusted my exectations to meet the reality of my situation. Yes. That's a much better way to say it. Anyhow, this boat was just transport to the actual vessel we were staying the night on. The boat was three stories and our room was very fancy, much fancier than most of the hotel rooms I've ever stayed at in Cambodia. We had a view out into the bay that was breathtaking. Shortly after putting our stuff down, we were served lunch which vastly exceeded our humble expectations of rice and fish soup (though all three of these things were involved).
Here are some things we did during Day 1:
-View some of the 1969 islands in Halong Bay
-Explore the "Surprise Cave" (so many tourists there!)
-Kayak around the bay (so much fun)...there were Vietnamese vendors that worked out of paddle boats and would come up beside you trying to sell you beer.
-Climb to the top of one of the islands
-Watch people jump into really cold waters
-Fish off the back of the boat (unsuccessfully)
Here are some people we met during Day 1:
-Family from Melbourne, Australia with two incredibly adorable and smart kids (6 and 7)
-Two girls from Ireland (one was from Dublin and the other was from somewhere in the western parts)
We ended up hanging out and chatting with these folk a lot. They definitely helped make the trip a bit more enjoyable than it already was.
Day 2 of Halong Bay:
We woke up to a chilly day in the middle of Halong Bay and didn't feel rushed at all. It was absolutely blissfull; it's hard to put into words. We took hot showers, got dressed, packed, ate breakfast, then simply relaxed on the deck for about an hour before we arrived to Cat Ba Island. There, we did these things:
- Climb to the top of the island (Jill and I chilled out halfway up after my camera broke; hopefully, I can get that fixed back in Hanoi)
- Check into our fancy hotels (seriously, the money we spent was well worth it)
- Get lunch
- Go to Monkey Island, chill out, do some trekking, watch monkey be drunk (these were the monkeys you read about in magazine stories that steal your beer)
- Relax for awhile
- Had dinner with the family and I, for some reason, thought the 6 year-old girl, whose question I answered, would understand the words "monitoring" and "evaluation". Whoops!
- Hang out with my travel buddies...which is what I'm doing right now. So, I'll post about Day 3 when it happens.
Here are some pics:
Talk to you soon,
Garrett
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