After having a taste of Hanoi, it was time to head out to
Halong Bay for our one-night cruise on a junk named the Dragon’s Pearl. The shuttle bus picked us up shortly after 8
where we rode with a Malaysian family out to the coast. Along the way, we learned that the crazy
traffic was not just confined to the city and continued on the rural roads as
well! We even witnessed a traffic
accident (looked like a minor rear-ending) as we made our way through the lush
countryside.
The trip was only supposed to take 2.5 hours, but it took us
nearly 4 to reach the new suspension bridge that took us out to Halong Bay city
where we met up with the rest of our adventurers.
Here's a video of the sort of scenery we were in for:
Including us, there would be 18 guests on the
boat: the 6 Malaysians, 2 people from Australia, 2 from Germany, 2 from France,
2 from China, 1 of unknown origin (I never heard him speak), and 1 brash lady
from Scotland who we nicknamed Mary (Queen of Scots, you see). We boarded the junk and immediately sat down
to lunch on the stern of the boat. It
was at least 7 courses and included many fresh seafood items. Jon and I sat across from the French couple
who didn’t speak much English. I tried
to translate a few things for them and even engaged them in a little French
conversation about on the level of a second-grader (“My name is Rob, what is
your name?”, “We are from the United
States, where are you from?”, “Where is the library?”, etc.).
That afternoon, we disembarked on a small island where we
toured some caves that had once been inhabited by 2 fishing families who now
reside on a nearby floating village. The
cave formations were very nice, and then we had some time to enjoy the
beach. I opted to go kayaking with some
of the other folks from our boat while Jon took in the beach and checked out
all the boats parked nearby.
We relaxed the rest of the day, checking out all the rock
formations as the boat motored around.
We had dinner in the dining room of the boat (again, many courses and
again, fantastic) before doing a little reading from the upper deck as night
fell. We turned in early to our
stateroom.
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