Day 9:
Waking up early to be at the docs for our boat trip, we were greeted by some morning mist. Quick bacon and egg sandwich from the hotel kitchen (accompanied by some good coffee of course) and we were on our way. We left the Harbour to go and explore some of the islands just off the mainland.
There are many charters going out every day to do this, which makes it feel very commercialised, but I can truly understand why so many people come here to see this. It made me feel a bit weird as we were so use to travelling off the beaten track the last couple of days that it almost make me feel fake to do this cliqued tourist trip. But it was definitely worth it!!
There are over 1600 individual islands here and not even all of them have been named yet.
This was the first island were we anchored and were taken into some caves, which was beautiful, but there were just too many people around (I suppose we were forming part of this very problem).
About to board again and I was starting to get hungry.
So some sugarcane from a local vendor will sort out that problem.
As the mist started clearing away some majestic scenes emerged all around us. Absolutely amazing.
A local vendor pulled up to try and sell some fresh fruit to us while we were cruising. These people live here on the water and goes to shore every now and then to get some supplies for themselves.
This is a nice example of one of the villages that we visited. We stopped for a while and some of us got into smaller woven baskets, smeared with tar to go and explore a bit more.
They took us to what we thought was this cave in the mountain.
Which ended up being a cove instead. This was just breath taking...
They have everything here and most of them don’t visit the mainland that often. I even heard that some were born here and have never been to the mainland. It was really something seeing these dogs play and chasing each other around on the houseboats. I felt for the one cat that was stuck with 3 dogs on the premises.
Back to our boat and off to one of the local fish markets to pick up some lunch. You pull in, get off, point out the crabs/fish/clams etc that you want and off you go again.
One of our crew decided he would like to have some squid for lunch.
Navigating our way through the islands our chef was busy preparing some fresh fish and seafood for us. I saw this little shop that was put up on the island and I wondered to myself how many customers they get...
Pictures don’t do justice to this place
This is the famous hens/chickens island.
After a very good lunch we arrived at this private beach. Immediately the thought of having a great party here with all your friends entered both our minds.
Time to test the water
Nice little view from the mountain side and I can just imagine what this must look like on a sunning day.
Arriving back on the mainland we explored the local markets for the rest of the day, took an afternoon powernap and tried organising our way back to Hanoi the next day. Unfortunately there aren’t any trains from Halong so we decided to get a bus back as the Tet festival was coming to an end and the highways would be chaotic tomorrow. They were prepared to put our bikes underneath in the baggage compartment of the bus, but wanted to charge us a ridiculous price which made us settle for riding the bikes back to Hanoi the next day.
Had some dinner and wine at a restaurant in the evening and couldn’t find a karaoke bar afterwards so decided to hit the sack and call it a day.
Topic: Vietnam on a Russian Minsk (Read 9763 times)
