halong bay was... well, let's just say it's probably in the top 3 events of my entire south east asia experience. north est coast of vietnam, littered with spires portruding from the water and junk. (the boats are called junk, but are far from our usual interpretation of the word. quite the contrary, in fact)
we boarded our junk and it was a fantastic piece of work. the rooms we had on this boat were cleaner and nicer than most of the places we stayed in laos and cambodia! the dining room was top notch and the weather was foggy, which i didn't mind. very atmospheric. another bonus this boat had was that the kitchen staff catered to my every need as a vegetarian. and i'm a picky one! johan FINALLY lucked out because anything that was meaty at our table belonged to just him. sean, jess and lando usually had the fish foods. our first adventure was to head to a cave cleverly dubbed "amazing cave". indeed it was, however it was totally done up for the tourists. colour tintd floodlights illuminated the more interesting formed rock walls in this wide open cavern. it was massive. our guide continually pointed out with a laser pointer the rocks that resembled penises or people having sex. gee...
at the entrance and exit of this cave was an awesome overview of the bay we were in. some folks even had floating houses out here.... and they owned pets. can't imagine that's a good life for some of them. maybe they weren't pets? maybe they were dinner.... can't tell with the vietnamese! =p
we finished with the caves and then began our kayaking adventure. lando and i were team fail 2009 and had a hard time at first. we kayaked around some bend and then through this neat cave in a wall that just led us into a dead end cove. it was pretty cool that there happened to be a small passageway to kayak through, because otherwise there'd have been no way in. that basically did it for the kayaking. we went back to our big boat and got ready for dinnner and karaoke. never done karaoke before but some large australian took the stage and sort of instilled in me the courage to step up. well, that and a few beers... ha. i began with doing "knowing me, knowing you" by ABBA with him and proceeded to do a whole lot more through the night. can't remember them all but there ARE videos. ....
sean broke his wine glass around 1 am and that spelled the end of the evening. the next morning, we finally found a weakness of this trip: their inability to make good breakfasts. dinners, lunches... excellent. breakfast? crappy microwaved white bread and eggs. i didn't eat much. this is where the trip changed for everyone on board. 3 day trippers continued on to catba island and me and my friends stayed on with a few others on our way back to the coast to catch a bus back to hanoi. alot of reading on the top deck and watching the scenery before we got back.
this was really my only 'small world' experience in asia but in the parking lot while waiting for the bus, i literally bumped into an old co worker from subeez in vancouver. weird? yea.,...
that was it, though. halong bay was gorgeous and i'd highly recommend spending the extra dough on a good boat and check this out! easily one of the top highlights of my vacation!
