You can't visit Hanoi without going to Halong Bay, and after hearing and reading so much about it, I just had to go. No way was I going to give it a miss. We managed to book an overnight tour with the hotel, and they kindly allowed us to amend our stay from 4 nights to 3 nights (since 1 night was on the boat). A car picked us up from the hotel in the morning and it was a looooong drive to harbour (about 3+ hours. I pegged it as driving from SIN to KL).
Rice shortage? I think not...
We made a pitstop at this typically tourist-scamming rest-stop selling pottery, knick-knacks, souvenirs and other miscellaneous crap.
The harbour was a mess with a gaggle of boats squeezing in and out. Most of the boats were day-trippers. I'm glad we decided on the overnight trip (Thanks Rugburn) which was much more worthwhile. We got to see much more of the bay (I say 'see' with much generosity as the visibility was pretty bad) and we even had to experience a kayaking trip.
We were very fortunate when the guide gave us our room key. Basically, we had the best room on the boat with the best view. All the other rooms only had 1 window facing out, whilst we had a side window and a rear window.
That's probably a sister ship to ours. Same configuration. Our boat was aptly named 'Santa Maria'. I guess they ran out of 'Dung' names.
Rice shortage? I think not...
We made a pitstop at this typically tourist-scamming rest-stop selling pottery, knick-knacks, souvenirs and other miscellaneous crap.
The harbour was a mess with a gaggle of boats squeezing in and out. Most of the boats were day-trippers. I'm glad we decided on the overnight trip (Thanks Rugburn) which was much more worthwhile. We got to see much more of the bay (I say 'see' with much generosity as the visibility was pretty bad) and we even had to experience a kayaking trip.
We were very fortunate when the guide gave us our room key. Basically, we had the best room on the boat with the best view. All the other rooms only had 1 window facing out, whilst we had a side window and a rear window.
That's probably a sister ship to ours. Same configuration. Our boat was aptly named 'Santa Maria'. I guess they ran out of 'Dung' names.
Yup, visibility was pretty poor. I'd say it was about 100m or less. You couldn't even see the green of the island fauna till you were closer than 50m.
Old, Older, Oldest. The massive junk on the left was probably one of the 3-4 day trippers. It was huge, but luxurious. The middle one was the same as the one we were on, and the one on the right looked like a riverboat right out of the Mississippi.
Visibility got better as the day progressed, allowing me to take better photos, but it still felt gloomy. The weather was lovely though. Wonderfully cool and dry. The sun was shinning bright, but it seemed like the entire sky was blotted out by fog.
We finally stopped at a fishing village to start on our kayaking expedition. Kayaking was fun. I hadn't done it for more than a decade, but it came back quite easily.
They start'em young. The kid was probably younger than 6, but he was handling the boat with aplomb.
Meals on the boat was a strange experience. The food was decidedly asian, but the service and table settings seemed strangely western. The food was pretty good, but the portions seemed too small to be filling. Probably the worst part of meals was seeing all the food on the next table (4 VERY blonde VERY bimbo collegians) go to waste. The dumb blondes did not touch their food and it was thrown away. Quote of the day "I want to eat KFC - dumb blonde number 3"
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