After stealing a few hours sleep (everyone's a thief in Hanoi...) we dragged ourselves out of bed early and waited for our pick-up, with some trepidation as our tickets were among the things stolen. Luckily, the tour guide was full of understanding and we made the three-hour bus journey without a hitch. Well, except for a little girl in our tour group throwing up in the back of the bus. Our dismay turned to stifled giggles when she loudly proclaimed, over her Mum's embarrassed protestations of surprise, "Mummy, that's what I did yesterday".
We arrived in Halong Bay with no further incidents and made our way onto the beautiful boat, an old-fashioned junk cleverly fitted out with rooms. Setting sail into the bay was like entering another world. Halong is a collection of almost 2,000 limestone islands, which are actually the peaks of an ancient mountain range now almost completely submerged in the sea. The rocky outcrops are an eerie and beautiful sight, resembling nothing we'd ever seen before.
Some of the islands are hollow, containing labyrinthine caves. We explored one the tour operator's call 'Surprising Cave', which we thought was funny until we got inside and were surprised. It's huge, and through the good works of UNESCO (who are becoming a feature of this blog it seems), has been cleverly paved and lit to be accessible but not 'Disneyed'. Some of the rock formations resemble things such as a Buddha, elephants and a turtle, all with local legends attached, as well as the inevitable.
Some of the rocks stand in groups, sectioning off small 'lagoons' in the sea. We took to a kayak to explore one. Floating through a small tunnel, we emerged into a truly awe-inspiring place, with rocks jutting into the sky as high as we could see, and eagles flying overhead. We were lucky enough to be the only people in there so the view was matched with an almost reverential silence. Breathtaking.
The bay is home to a small community of indigenous fisherfolk who live on floating homes and rarely if ever take to dry land. Their floating bar may be familiar to some of you from this, which was our first introduction to Halong Bay. We used a far more sensible boat.
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