My trip to Ha Long Bay, Vietnam: The beauty of the bay

dewdrop (56)in #travel • 6 years ago

This was the moment we'd been waiting for: enjoying the otherworldly beauty of nature. We transferred to a rowboat to visit the Vung Vieng floating fishing village.

It was a little bit chilly as we moved gently on the calm emerald water.

There it was, the little fishing village right in front of us.

Passing the fishing village, we continued our journey.

A cave! Yup, it's just one of many caves here.

The bay has thousands of limestone karsts and islets in various shapes and sizes.

We took pictures, chatted about what we saw occasionally and just enjoyed being there. No electricity, no internet, and life was good. 😊

We passed a unique looking ship on our way back.

We had time to relax before dinner. Speaking of dinner, do you like Vietnamese food? If not, visiting Ha Long Bay could be a challenge. I love Vietnamese food so I had a wonderful time enjoying seafood and everything else. There was a spa onboard too.

The next morning, we skipped the sunrise and Taichi class in their schedule. We were still woken by the staff to get ready for breakfast at 7 am because we had to go sightseeing with all the other passengers. After breakfast, we got on a small boat to see Luon Cave.

The boat stopped in front of the entrance to Luon Cave. We waited for a small rowboat to take us through the cave. The misty mountain atmosphere woke me up.

Here we were going through that tiny looking cave.

It looked bigger as we got closer. What's inside?

Going through the cave was a unique experience. The journey was as exciting as the destination.

It was a bay surrounded by mountains. Our boat continued to move around the very calm water to have a closer look at all the living things on the rocks. There was a monkey on a cliff who greeted us as we entered the bay through the cave. Can you find him?😄

On the way out, we saw people kayaking into the cave. Would you prefer to kayak or sit comfortably as a passenger on a rowboat with others and enjoy the view?

Then we got into a motorboat and headed back to the cruise ship because some passengers were departing one day before us.

We moved past unforgettable scenes. At that point, I told myself I would come back again someday.

Most people ended their journey here. It was just 9 am, my husband and I were the only ones who stayed for another day. So we boarded a day boat and spent the rest of our day there. Yeah! Another boat. This one was nicer with a restaurant,

a deck and we had the entire boat to ourselves.

We spent the day with a very nice crew: a captain, a tour guide, and a chef. The crew was taking us to new places, we told each other our life stories, about our families and how we got there. I told them how cold it was in New York City at the time.

We passed by a beach but it was too chilly to swim, so we just took some pictures. Say cheese...😄

We stopped at a pearl farm and had a little tour. This girl was explaining how pearls are cultured from oysters. We were shown step by step the process of pearl farming. I even had a chance to pick an oyster with pearls inside to open. There was a jewelry store that sold pearls too.