Ha Long Bay tour time! Waking up was a little bit hard but it’s about a 3½ hour drive from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay, so you can sleep a little more. But don’t sleep the whole time or you will miss the chance to see a part of the real live of the Vietnamese, away from the big city Hanoi, straight through the small cities with nothing special, maybe a karaoke bar or a hotel but that was it. You can see that there are many similarities between the live there and the live in Hanoi, people still all sit together at the sidewalk, eating something or smoking those huge pipes while talking and watching the traffic. But it’s far more calm than in the city, even if I just saw this while driving through I think I saw the differences quit good.
When you drive to Ha Long Bay you’ll also drive over some big bridges and you will see many rice fields *-*
After a short stop halfway there at a handcrafts shop from disabled people, who do really beautiful pictures and other stuff, we went on. There I also found a bottle of Snake-Scorpion Wine O.o There stood it is a Vietnamese specialty.
When we finally arrived in Ha Long Bay, the group split up in two parts, those who stay one night or longer and the ones who just do a one-day tour. I was at the one day tour. We went to a boat and drove with it to a small place at the Bay called the Fisher village, but there are no Fishers anymore. Earlier there lived many of them but since the UNESCO claimed the Ha Long Bay one of the 7 new Nature wonders, they had to move, to not pollute the Bay to much. It’s kinda sad that they lost their home, considering there lived so many generations of fisherman, but if it’s better for the environment…
My breakfast were just some cookies I got the other day from those kind girls. The lunch was pretty touristic. There weren’t even chopsticks, just normal fork and knife. They served several seafood, rice and some vegetables. It was okay but I would have liked it more if it had been real authentic Vietnamese seafood. The guys who sat on my table were really strange, they ate very little and found everything strange although it was just normal seafood, also they didn’t ate up, they took something on their plate, ate half of it and tried something else. Even our tour guide came at the end of the lunch, saw that there were so many leftovers and asked if the food wasn’t good or what the matter was. That made me a little bit upset. But well, they are just tourists and can do whatever they want and maybe food is not that big of a deal for them.
When we arrived at the Fisher village I took the option of a bamboo-boat tour, you could also kayak, but the tour guide told us that you’re probably going to get wet and if you don’t have anything to change with you that could be a little uncomfortable. The bamboo-boat tour was really good you could just relax and enjoy the view to those biiig mountains surrounding you and the small caves you were going through. Except that it’s pretty loud because of the many tourists who were there. If it would be a little bit more quiet I think it would have been more beautiful and mystical, but everyone wants to go there, which is very understandable, but if they could be just a little bit quieter.
After the tour we went in with the boat to a cave in the Bay. There are many caves in the Bay you can visit, some bigger some smaller, we were at a smaller one but our guide said it’s nicer than the big ones. The caves are well lit in many different colors. It sadly makes it look a little unnatural but it’s still pretty nice. The tour guide told us some infos to the bay and the caves and then we headed back to the mainland and to the bus. The ride back home feeled way longer than the ride to the bay, but I think it was about the same time^^
In the evening I visited a night market. I looove those! We should have them in our western countries too! They are so awesome!
Later I went to the pub I was yesterday and celebrated the last day of the honeymoon of the German couple I met there. They gave me some tips for Cambodia and we talked a lot about everything. It was really nice meeting them 🙂
After the long day and a pretty long night I went back to the hostel and slept immediately^^
