Day 2: Halong Bay

Halong Bay! Well our welcome to the bay was, errr, well interesting...?

First thing we saw upon arrival was masses of people crowded around the shore looking out to the sinking ship!  A junk boat had caught on fire and was sinking!!! Luckily it was not our junk boat.

We planned the trip through the hostel therefore everyone was around our age, all backpackers!  The bay is beautiful! Cloudy day and a little cool so Amber and I bough big huge puffy jackets at the stands for a good bargained price.

On the dingy heading out to our junk boat which was moored in the bay.

Our rooms were nice and clean and all the meals were huge! Typical Vietnamese style bringing out lots of plates of food to share with the table.  We had 2 boats tied together the entire time and there were about 40 of us total! Big group but so nice to have the company in the cold weather!

The first activity upon arrival to the bay was SWIMMING! As expected I did jump in! Me and very few others... water felt warmer due to the cold air but it really was not as bad as everyone seemed to think it would be! (of course I'm the one saying this so you can decide what you believe and what you dont)

Immediately after the swimming with no time to warm up (not that I really needed it) we went kayaking. We kayaked first to the fishing village in the bay.  The houses, if you can call them that, were floating in the water some attached to each other some on their own.  There would be around 4 people living in each of the small huts and more for the bigger ones.  It was so hard to imagine that they really live there all year round!

Next stop was the cave! I walked most of the way in and was a beautiful view of the beach that we landed on...

Amber and Laura (a girl we met on the boat who is traveling on her own) on the shore in front of the cave.

View as I started to walk into the cave.

Inside the cave. 

After all the activities we returned to hot showers for the lucky and luke-warm to cool for me... but after we had another amazing meal and some organised fun to warm us up...

some of the people we met on the boat

even more of the people we met on the baot

The next morning we woke up bright and early, some went to an island to spend another night out in the bay while Amber and I, along with others, made the trip back to the town and then back to Hanoi.

On the way we found out the story of how the bay was created.  Apparently there was a mythical dragon who carved out all the islands with his tail... we were also looking for the real explanation but this is the only one we could find...

On the deck of the boat in my brand new puffy jacket... later left in Hoi An

One of the islands. I really liked the slant of this one...

Our last meal.  :)