Ha Long Bay

I booked an overnight tour of Ha Long Bay through my hotel and they arrived very early Saturday morning to pick me up for the 3 hour ride from Hanoi to Ha Long City to meet our junk boat. There were 13 other people joining the tour. It was an interesting cross section with a couple from France, 2 girls from Poland, 1 guy from Lithuania, a couple from Germany, an Aussie, a couple from California, a guy from Ottawa, and a couple from Amsterdam. We had a very funny guide named Hien. He spoke really great English and was always ready with a really corny joke.

Ha Long means dragon descending, with the local legend telling of a celestial dragon and her children, sent by the Jade Emperor to stop an invasion, spat out great quantities of pearls to form islands and razor-sharp mountain chains in the path of enemy fleet. The bay is peppered with over 2,000 limstone mountains jutting out of the emerald waters. It is quite beautiful. We were able to tour one of the caves and it was quite impressive with its many stalagmites and stalagtites. I even had a chance to kayak through and around these limestone rocks. The view from that vantage point was unbelievable. We also swam in the emerald waters before dinner. I'm not quite confident in my swimming skills so I had to be the loser with the bright orange life vest.

We then slept under the stars on the upper deck of our boat. As cheesy as it may sound, I can honestly say it was quite a magical moment. It did end up raining in the middle of the night and we all had to run down to our cabins. I had such a great time here and meeting and bonding with the other travelers on the boat made it evem more memorable.