Halong Bay, Vietnam

Known as the descending dragon Halong Bay is a spectacular arrangement of islands in northern Vietnam very near the border to China. There are over 1,900 tiny islands in the large bay and all but a couple of them are uninhibited. The waters itself however are inhabited with many small communities living on rafts tied together to make floating villages.

 

We spent two nights and three days on a Junk boat exploring only a small portion of the islands, here are some of the pictures.

 

We chose a cruise where we got to spend one of the days kayaking. Our other boat mates all opted for a hike through Cat Ba island and then an overnight in a hotel ashore. Our kayaking option allowed us to spend the second night on board the boat again.

 

A smaller boat picked us up as well as five people from another boat and we took off for the whole day. It had a great top deck for sleeping after lunch, unlike our mothership whose deck was falling apart.

 

 

 

 

We got to see an operating Pearl farm. It was neat to see them actually implanting the oysters. They also farmed cobia and grouper in pens near the oysters.

 

Each buoy is a cage full of oysters

One of many little floating homes

Families live on these fishing boats

 

And now for a couple of pictures from the boat we spent the night on during our excursion. The food was amazing and the scenery was incredible. Our room was great and even had air conditioning and a big window looking out. However, the boat lacked a nice top deck for lounging and a decent paint job as the pictures show.

 

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