We had a bus ride from Hanoi to Halong city from where we would have a small boat picking us up and transfer us to our "junk".
A real beauty! All the boats had to be painted with white color just recently. Before most of the boats were in a natural brown. One of the regions smart heads had the idea it would be great to introduce a law that all boats from the regions should be white. Nobody could explain me why. (this guy probably owned a paint company and wanted to increase his revenue through this law!?)
We had a warm welcome on board and were shown our cabins. Everything was in good shape and had a beautiful interior. The crew had everything nicely arranged for our arrival.
We started cruising immediately and whilst acclimatizing on board the first cast formations appeared. We had a delicious lunch on board and were able to see floating villages, other boats and the formations passing by. Even though there was no blue sky, it was a stunning view.
Our first stop was at the "Surprise Cave". We had to climb some steep stairs to the entrance of the cave in one of the cast mountain islands.
When the French came here and discovered this cave, they were so surprised by what they found that they called the cave "Surprise Cave". We felt exactly the same way when we entered into this wonderland. The size was incredible and the formations of the stalactites and stalagmites was amazing. Lights were positioned to show the spectacular futures.
When we arrived at the end of the cave and turned around an unbelievable view was ahead of us.the different colors of the light and the natural light at the very far end looked so surreal. We were all very touched by the beauty of this place.
After the cool and fresh air in the cave we felt the heat and humidity when we came back to the outside. The view was amazing from the top down into this little bay in-between the islands. We had a short cruise before we ankered for the night. We went with the kayak and paddled around. When the lightning started I wondered if it was very smart to be in the middle of the water with a metal pole in my hand, but the warm and pleasant rain falling down on us made me forget right away and keep enjoying the experience.
As we were already wet, we decided to go for a swim at the boat. Our tour guide had the awesome idea to jump from the top of the boat. So we all went to jump. Then mum also came swimming, and as she didn't want o take the stairs, she also climbed over the barrier and stood there looking down. First I thought she was kidding. Even the cook tried to pull her back over to the sun deck. She just stood there, looked at us, took a big breath.... and jumped down from the ver top around 8 meters into the water...! Wow! After she found all parts of her swim dress she emerged back to the surface. I'm proud of you mum!
After so much adventure and a nice warm shower, we sat down for dinner. We got served so much food. The attention to detail put into the dishes and the quality was absolute fantastic! We enjoyed every single dish served and ate until we couldn't anymore!
The vegetable carvings and presentation was very beautiful. Big respect for the young boys who were our chefs!
The next morning we climbed up to a pagoda. As it was still hazy, which is probably part of this specific season, we didn't see too far. I guess that if you come in winter time the view will be a lot better, however it could be a lot colder as well, even close to freezing point.
After a little swim at the beautiful sand beach, we went back to our boat to start our journey to Cat Cat island where we would stay for the night. We enjoyed the cruise on the sun deck with this ever changing view.
We had a stop to go with a bicycle into a national park and visit a cave. The ride was fun and we had a good time. The cave wasn't too big and we didn't see too much except of some bats.
On our way we observed water buffalos, saw beautiful flowers and different kind of insects.
After the sweaty ride we proceeded our cruise and had lunch next to a floating fisher village. This people live on a small boat with their families and fish to make their living. A very tough way to be out there day in day out with not a lot around you!
For the night we had a hotel on Cat Cat island. It was a beautiful hotel and we had a good view as well. We went out for the night to have a look at the town and get something to eat. Preferable fish in such an environment!
The town was full of Vietnamese, as they had summer holidays. Vietnamese like to play and so was the main plaza filled with different activities for the children. Fishing magnetic fish, painting all different kind of objects, or... and my favorite: kids sitting in small electronic cars with their dad who had an remote control and was navigating their kids around! I couldn't stop laughing!
The town had everything necessary, including huge glass jars with all kind of animals floating around inside. You could get them with sewerage, snakes, goats, mussels, roots, herbs, and what ever you want to imagine!
In front of every second restaurant were many bowls with alive fishes, snails or mussels. You could point at what you wanted and they would prepare it for you. There were so many fishes I've seen the first time of my life. You could even order crabs, get a pot of hot water and cook them on your own table. Yo can't get it fresher than this! If it wouldn't be so messy I might even like it. So we found a nice place were we also found our tour guide having dinner with his nephew and enjoyed a couple of different dishes including some delicious squid dish.
After a great breakfast buffet we went back to sea and our way back to the main land. We had a smooth cruise and got shown some of their vegetable carving skills on the way.
We had a good trip back to Hanoi and got organized for tomorrow's departure of mum from the airport in Hanoi.
We had an wonderful time in Halong Bay and an amazing trip together with my mum through Vietnam. So we brought her next day to the airport and said farewell and a safe long journey. She had to fly to Saigon, change plane to get to Bangkok, change plane again and fly to Frankfurt. There she had to get a train into the deepest Black Forest and then take a bus for the last 20min. So 27hrs later she would arrive in Germany. That's a he'll of a trip, but who can jump from boats can do this as well, right?
We had a typical Vietnamese story when we wanted to buy stamps for some postcards at the airport. The lady wanted to have 15.000 dong for one stamp. When I told her that the postoffice only charged 12.000, she said "Ok." and gave them to me for 12.000. What's going on here?
Anyways... Here are more Photos.
No comments:
Post a Comment