The best way to describe Ha Long Bay is that it looks like those islands in Goonies. It's an archipeligo of over 1,000 limestone islands, and some kind of descending dragon was involved in creating them. I took a three day tour there a few days ago with some other tourists from Italy, France, Ireland, and also 5 NYU law grads. They bused us up there (about 3 hours), of course, stopping along the way at an overpriced souvenir shop. We arrived at Haiphong city to board our boat, where we were to spend the first night. The scenery from the boat was absolutely gorgeous. We spent about an hour or so getting into the bay amidst the limestone islands, and then we headed to Titop Island to a small beach for some swimming. Next we headed to Hang Sung Sot, which was an enormous cave, and afterwards anchored in a nearby bay, where about 30 other boats similar to ours were moored. We had some time to swim around the boat and were allowed to jump off of the top of the boat, which was a lot of fun, and then we had dinner, and then drinks in the moonlight on top of the boat while we played "actionary" (which is really just charades). We slept overnight in cabins on the boat, and the next day we headed off further into the bay. We met up with a smaller boat than ours and switched over to it, and it took us to an area near Monkey Island where we kayaked for a few hours. Unfortunately we couldn't take cameras with us because they would have gotten wet, but we were able to kayak into a completely enclosed lagoon, accessed only by going through a limestone arch. By the time we left the lagoon, the tide had risen and there was only about 4 feet of clearance space left--when the tide rises completely in the afternoon, the lagoon is inaccessible. Next we headed over to Monkey Beach, where all the monkeys were hiding in the jungle so we just swam for a bit, and then we headed over to another small island beach for lunch. After lunch, we took our boat over to Viet Hai Harbour on Cat Ba Island for some mountain biking. The ride was quite difficult and we had to stop several times, but we made our way through rice paddies and a couple of small villages, and then went back the way we came. It was one of those things that was more fun once it was over! Next we headed to Ben Beo harbor on Cat Ba Island, which is the main harbor there. Ca Ba is the largest of the islands in Ha Long Bay, and actually comprises over 300 small islands in addition to the main one. We stayed in the "best" hotel on Cat Ba Island, which our guide proudly told us was run by the government. That night after dinner, our guide took us to a local Bia Hoi where we drank many pitchers for free, and then we went on to another place for some incredible karyoke. Our last day was really all travel--a few hours back on the boat to Haiphong, then lunch, then the bus trip back.
