Day 13 - Bai Tu Long Bay — Wayfaring Abroad

Our trip to Halong Bay began at 7 am with a van ride to Halong City to catch our boat out into the bay. We were picked up along with 5 others and we began the long drive across Vietnam.

The drive was to take 4 hours and get us to the harbor around noon. We were all exhausted and were feeling the drain from our travel. We attempted to sleep on the drive and partially succeeded but unfortunately it wasn't the most comfortable drive.

Cau Bai Chay bridge outside Hon Gai Harbor.

We arrived to the bay around 12 and were brought to a small restaurant to wait for our boat to arrive. After a short period we were ushered by golf cart to the harbor and out into the harbor to our cruise. We were given a small talk at the beginning discussing some safety issues and given keys to our room where we would be staying. We had two connecting rooms and found them to be quite nice. After settling into our rooms we headed up to the deck fro lunch and to enjoy the views of the bay as we motored out to our first stop.

It is quite surreal to be eating a prepared lunch on a cruise ship with scores of limestone mountains surrounding you. We enjoyed our meal and headed down to change. Our first stop was in the harbor where we were getting into kayaks to a small beach on one of the islands.

We do not have the most experience in a kayak so we were on shaky ground in the middle of the bay but we made it there without any incident. it was not too hot of a day so the excercise felt amazing. We got the beach and got to enjoy some downtime laying out and swimming. The water was considerably colder than the water in Phuket. We only spent a little time in the water before laying out on the beach.

We were all so tired that we almost fell asleep before having to head back to the boat. When we got back to the boat we decided to take advantage of the pool on board. I was waiting for sunset and when we got back to the deck the sun had finally emerged from the clouds. I spent the next 40 minutes enjoying the sun setting through the clouds and islands. The haze in the sky gave the orb of the sun a clear hue and color that was completely visible. It was incredible.

We had dinner shortly after sunset. It was a multi course meal under the stars with the sounds of moored boats beside us. We were anchored in this inlet surrounded by islands, it was a perfect setting for dinner.

After dinner we went to the back of the boat and attempted to squid fish. They use bamboo polls with a fishing line and lure. The boat shines a light into the water and squid are supposed to come to the surface and you pull the lure up to catch them. There were about 12 of us out back attempting this for a half hour but only one quid was caught.

In the end we gave up and headed back to our room where we spent a little time hanging out before going to bed.