Before and during our trip to Hanoi, it seemed that everyone wanted to know if we were going to Halong Bay. We had originally planned not to because: we only had five days and didn’t want to feel rushed, leaving cities makes us nervous and we had heard that it was packed full of tourists.
Well … that whole thing with the ultra-nationalist protestors taking over the airport in BKK (and pretending that it was about democracy) made our vacation much longer than planned and with no idea of what to do, we finally broke down and booked a trip to Halong Bay.
The trip ran around $100 each, they picked us up at the hotel in a big van, drove us two hours down there, stuck us on this pretend pirate ship, made us be friendly to strangers, made us share our dinner table with people we didn’t know, charged us $3 a bottle for water when they told us that all expenses were included, ohh! and fed us horrible food.
Hmmm … ok it wasn’t that bad. The scenery was really pretty, the boat was in great condition, i got some great photographs and it was nice to get away and relax before we hunkered down and rode a bus and train 40 hours to BKK.
This first photograph shows the bay chock full of boats, which seems pretty cool if you imagine that they are all pirates or something. When you realize that they are full of tourists complaining that the food is too spicy your opinion might change.
These next two are of what makes the bay so famous, these crazy rock formations that jut out of the water.
Those rock formations are called karsts.
Also, are you sure we paid $100/each for that trip? I think it was much less…