In the morning, Columbus Cruise came to pick us up from our hotel. After a few stops to pick up more of our travel companions, we were on our three-hour bus ride to Halong Bay for our two night/three day tour.
At first, our tour guide, Hai, was a bit too talkative and happy for me. After Egypt, I’ve become a bit less patient and more skeptical of tour guides and their babble. However, everything got better despite a hot rest stop and some waiting for our shuttle boat to arrive to take us to our ship – the Pinta Gold. Once we settled in to our tight, but lovely cabin quarters, had some lunch and adjusted to a few days on the water, I felt a bit better.
Our first event after lunch was to take a smaller boat to the “Amazing Caves”. The event didn’t start too well as my sunglasses dropped into the sea forever since they were on my head and not my face….If only they had been $10 ones instead of what they really were…oh well, just things, right???
The Amazing Caves turned out to be pretty cool. Though, after seeing the caves of Nerja, they were perhaps less amazing than they could have been. Still, it was a nice little tour to start off our trip. Afterward, we returned to our ship to anchor in the night spot and have a bit of a swim. At last! With a slight hesitation to jump off the boat, I felt happy to be back in the water since it had been a bit of time since I last had a good swim and was starting to miss it. We all enjoyed the refreshing water until a jellyfish scare and someone getting stung took some of the joy out of it and we all got out of the water for the evening.
The next day was an early start with breakfast at 7am and off on an “adventure” kayaking trip at 745. The kayaking was a bit tough, but Craig did most of the work, so I didn’t feel too sore afterwards…, but the weather was absolutely perfect and we got to see some great views of the islands and water. Too bad I didn’t get any photos of the kayaking trip, but I was afraid of the water ruining my camera.
After the kayaking we returned to the ship to prepare for our day trip out. We took a smaller boat out towards the Cat Ba islands and found a private beach to have lunch on the sand and a good safe swim in the sea. Some of us stayed to enjoy the water and others (Craig and Roman) went off on an “adventure” trek. Apparently the trek was good exercise and worth it the effort. I enjoyed the water immensely and spent most of the afternoon floating and swimming around. Considering I have spent a great deal of my life hating water, I’m a bit shocked at how much I really am enjoying and almost needing to swim these days!
In the evening, we headed back to the boat and had a quiet one.
Our last day in the bay started like the previous one and we did a short kayaking trip around the floating fishing village. It was cool to see how people live in houses on the water. It’s a lifestyle totally impossible to me!
After some waiting around and such, we finally made it back to land and had an interesting bus ride back to the city noises of Hanoi.
More to come,
T
