Day 14 - Bai Tu Long Bay — Wayfaring Abroad

I decided the night before to wake up for sunrise. I figured that there were few opportunities where I would find myself in Halong Bay overnight. Even though I had begun to get a head cold the day before I figured that it was worth it.

So I got out of bed at 5 for sunrise at 5:15. Unfortunately, the sky was hazy and I Stood out in the still morning without a visible sunrise. The sky got a little lighter and I got to enjoy the feel a completely still boat and water. We were surrounded by other boats but there wasn't another sole on any decks. I had the whole are to myself. After deciding that I wasn't going to be seeing sunrise I went back to my room and attempted get back in bed without waking anyone up.

I fell asleep rather easily and was awoken by others heading up to the sun deck for morning tai chi. I headed up a little later for breakfast. For breakfast we were offered pho or a western style breakfast. After breakfast we headed to the boats so we could make it to another island where we were to walk through a cave 30 meters up.

We got the island after some other groups were just finishing and had the cave mostly to ourselves. We were informed that fisherman used to find these caves and live in them whenever storms would come into the bay. They would find themselves stuck out and seek shelter. Vietnam has since created floating fishing villages for the fisherman to live and has set up housing on land where they can reside. Vietnam has taken conservation of the bay ahead of these fisherman, also it helps with tourism.

After we finished in the cave it was time to return to the boat and get all packed up, checked out and ready to get off the boat.

We packed and went upstairs for lunch which was buffet style. The highlight was passion fruit juice which was quickly drunk by everyone on the boat.

The view looking out to the bay from our island excurision.

After we had lunch it was time to disembark and head back to the city before the long drive back to Hanoi. At this time I was thoroughly feeling my head cold and was ready to spend my time relaxing in bed so that I could feel acceptable enough for our 15 hour flight home in a couple days.

Our wait in Halong City was over an hour for the vans to pick us up and head back. We waited and waited, it was a little frustrating but once we got in a van we were very much ready to return to Hanoi.

The drive back to Hanoi took a long 5 hours in total. It felt like we were moving through molasses. Each road was a single lane with a small lane for motorbikes and every truck was driving below 30 km/hr. We had a stop along the way where we saw a water puppet show.

I don't know what to say about the water puppet show. It was very interesting and was enjoyable to watch but without knowing what exactly was being said and was happening it was a little hard to follow.

We finally got back to Hanoi and I spent the rest of the day relaxing so that I could rest up for our return home beginning the next day.