Part 2 of 5 weeks in Vietnam - Halong Bay

mushymushy Registered Users Posts: 643 Major grins
edited April 4, 2008 in Journeys
After a few days in Hanoi we booked a 3 day cruise on Halong bay, its a 4 hour squished bus ride to Halong City before entering a mad little port with tourists and tour operators going everywhich way.
Ontop of all this the clouds had settled in and quite low too so it was quite misty and moody as you couldn't see out into the bay at all.
The downside was not being able to keep te camera out due to the amount of moisture in the air.

Our group heading down the pier in search of our junk.
267206764_72qSp-L.jpg

Finally heading out leaving the hussle bussle behind
267206731_JoD3r-L.jpg

Due to pretty savage tides we ended up stuck in the mud in the middle of the bay for about 2 hours watching smaller boats chug on by, it was quite frustrating. Anyways once we did get moving again it wasn't long before we got to see what we came for, huge limestone outcrops jutting up out of the ocean.
267206805_NPZQ2-L.jpg

Everyone was on deck, when the limestone pillars started to become visible.
267213120_FhJj7-XL.jpg

After cruising for a while we stopped at an island for a walk through two large caves.
267213132_USYnS-L.jpg

Walking between the two caves
267235445_bF2eB-L.jpg

Heading down into the second cave
267235576_ycsDA-L.jpg

Tried out a b/w on this one as we headed out of the bay, aiming for Cat Ba island to drop half of our group off for the night.
267235771_vDG3H-L.jpg

On our way we passed a floating fishing village
267238465_HcLR3-L.jpg

267507343_Mc7ng-L.jpg

Failing light from here onwards prevented any dusk photo's unfortunately.
Day 2 weather wise was a duplicate of the day before! We're getting used to this by now! But today its our turn to stay on the island and do a swap with those we dropped off yesterday.
Our first encounter on the island was a 2.5 hr trek through the mountains. we started out cold and rugged up, but about 30mins in we wished we hadn't brought so many layers along as it didn't take long to warm up.

Heading out into the unseeable mountains
267512069_nGr3S-L.jpg

Clambering up over wet volcanic rock, with a great looking safety rail on our left!
267516482_go8XV-L.jpg

From either of the two peaks we headed over you couldn't see anything at all! But on our way back down we were lucky enough to see the bay below
267516386_Vhog6-L.jpg

We stayed at Cat Ba town, which is a fishing village and summer tourist hotspot, for us though it was very quiet due to being off season.
Spotted this guy welding and it turned out being one of my favourite pics so far.
267516148_eyzp9-L.jpg

A view of the bay with a small floating restaurant in the front.
267537436_DHp7T-L.jpg

The following morning it was back to the pier to board our junk for the slow cruise back to town, stopping off at another floating village and a quick ride in a smaller boat through some caves.

Heading back to the pier
267622432_gTSeq-L.jpg

Can't really decide the best orientation for this shot but I loved all the colour, she was most persistent in selling us fruit!
267627459_TkPXP-L.jpg

Kids sitting on the front of another boat watching the funny tourists.
267627297_SGqgw-L.jpg

Watching one of the other groups dissappear through the cave entrance.
267627611_KDk7t-L.jpg

The local school, class was in but the shots were too dark to see
267634274_Czqaf-L.jpg

From here it was back to Halong harbour to join the madness and another squished 4 hour bus ride back to Hanoi.
267637945_xb47E-L.jpg

Thanks for taking the time to have a look through :thumb
May I take your picture?

Comments

Sign In or Register to comment.