Halong Bay, Vietnam

Fri. March 29

Check out and pick up at 7:30 to head to Halong Bay.  It's nice we are in a private car for the 3+ hour drive but there are no seatbelts in the back and the driving is just a tad scary for my liking and to know there are no seat belts... well....
The amount of things the Vietnamese can pile onto their motorbikes is really quite impressive!.

We arrive at Halong bay city about 11:30 and take some time.. ok.. here I am typing on my wireless keyboard with my laptop propped up as I look down and see a woman in a large rowboat selling  goods, it's all a little surreal.

We get on our Junk Boat called Bien Ngoc 10.  There 5 Germans on board - they have been travelling for Vietnam 3 weeks - and tonight is their last night.  
Now I don't know exactly what I was expecting but this was not exactly it.  It's just fine but not exactly what I was expecting.  We had lunch which for me was a huge variety of fish, my view was the by-passing rock/mountain formation.  Epic!

Next we went to visit a Pearl Farm.  I learned that they use oyster shells frome Mississippi River to chip off the pearly inner sheels into small cubish  pieces and then  with a machine round them into small balls.  Next they use the oysters here  and extract some of the pearl tissue which live inside the oyster to sort of pregnant it and put it into another oyster that is 3 years old  with the hopes it will form into a pearl.  It will take 2 more years to grow the pearl.  And that's why it's called a cultured pearl.  And that is why they are expensive.  A person has to manually open the oyster and put in the cultured pearl!
A visitor learning about the pearls chose an oyster and someone broke it open and there was an oyster there but they said they could not use it because it was faulty as it had a brown blemish on it. 

Then we had a choice to either to climb to the top of treetop hill or go kayaking.  So I decided to go kayaking as I wanted to continue my - how many places can I kayak!  Thought to overlook this natural wonder of the world would have been good - maybe Lauren will share her photos.

After we dropped everyone else off at the hike, they brought me to another area.  One of the ladies on the boat (they were all here last night too) said they had gone kayaking yesterday and they had to follow a guide and sign your life away.  Me - I was handed a life jacket and then pointed to a boat.  I asked if there was a guide and they said no but then one of the guys which works on the boat said he would come with me and got in the boat.  We had a quick paddle across the way where he showed me a cave.  We got out  and I walked around and saw the stallemites and staglegtites.  Then we went around a few rock structures and you could see the shell fossils clinging to the rocks.  The rock is quite porous - I think it is limestone.

snacks?

So these women in these rowboats selling 7-11 stuff, snacks, water, beer, wine, etc.  smart idea.  However I had already purchased my beer from the boat not knowing that is what these ladies do.

Halong Bay is a UNWSCO World Heritage Site - it spreads acrose 580 sq.miles with more than 2,000 pinnacle-shaped limestone and dolomite coutcrops.  According to legend, the bay was formed when a gigantic dragon - ha long means descending dragon - plunged in the Gulf of Tonkin and created all these myriads with the lashing of its tail.

Dinner on the boat