Tianne and I grabbed a quick breakfast at a nearby restaurant and was picked up by our driver at around 7am. The drive to Halong City took three hours -- faster than the four hours it would have taken on a minibus or tour bus.
We arrive at the docks just after 10am and boarded the Hong Minh -- a boat that could have held 20 passengers but was just for us. What can I say -- paying a couple extra bucks was definitely worth it for this once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Halong Bay is exactly as magnificent as you might think it is. More than 3,000 limsetone islands rising from the Gulf of Tonkin - absolutely breathtaking. While the islands are made of rock, trees do manage to grow on the grottoes and is what gives the islands a green appearance.
We had the opportunity to visit a couple of caves at the Hang Dau Go site. They were huge and amazing! Don't worry -- we took lots of photos. I think these are the best caves I've visited to date. We could have seen different cave sites, but we really just enjoyed sitting on the top deck and soaking in the scenery.
We also visited a floating fish village where people can buy live seafood -- crabs, fish, snails, clams, eels, and several other creatures we couldn't identify. They were all in separate nets and baskets in the water. We opted to stick with the meal our cook was preparing on the boat. I should mention that this is also where some fishing families live.
Our lunch was amazing -- fish, squid, calamari, spring rolls, greens, rice and mangoes. I think I'm leaving something out. At any rate, the food was all fresh and the seafood was all caught in the bay.
The route we took went to the western parts of the bay -- around Cat Ba Island and through many of other islands of all sizes. The weather was far from perfect, and even rained a bit at lunchtime. But this didn't dampen our spirits. It was just amazing to be there.
The winds came up as we were heading back to shore, which made for a bumpier ride. We hopped back in our car and headed for the airport (3 hours away), hoping to get back to Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) on the last flight of the day.
When we arrived we discovered that the last flight on Vietnam Airlines was cancelled and that the earlier flight was cancelled. We headed over the the Pacific Airlines counter and they were full too. We decided to book our morning flight. I went to book with Vietnam Airlines. After we purchased the tickets, the woman said to hang around for a few minutes if we really wanted to get on the flight. There were 13 names on the list, so we didn't hold our breath but shuffled our luggage around anyway. We were very surprised to get on the flight.
We have been noticing a bit of a trend, and will be trying to work it to our advantage. Tianne has had more success in getting information out of people (in English and Vietnamese) -- probably because she was born in Vietnam. I have had a better success rate when we need help or a favor -- I guess everyone feels sorry for the poor foreign girl. At any rate, this was our "Amazing Race" airport experience and we were very fortunate that it worked out.
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