Kayaking in Halong Bay - Nov. 13, 2010

 November 13, 2010

Senne's Summary: We had a fabulous day kayaking and swimming in Halong Bay.

This morning we woke up early for our 7:00 AM Breakfast (setting an alarm…what’s that?!?). There are few things nicer than getting up early, going outside, seeing Halong Bay and feeling the fresh sea air on your face.

Breakfast was a little more reasonable (size-wise) with juice, tea, fruit, rolls and an egg with ham. After breakfast the rest of our shipmates got on a little rowboat to go to the monkey cave. They had chosen only a one night trip. We waited on the big boat for the "day boat" to come and get us, as we were staying for two nights and got to go kayaking today.

Side note: If you come to Halong Bay (and I really think you should!) definitely do the three day/two night trip with kayaking on the second day. There are a variety of itineraries, and it seems that most people choose just one night. The kayaking on the second day was the highlight of our trip, and shouldn’t be missed!

So incredibly beautiful and tranquil

As we waited for the day boat I just had a little lay down on the bench on the upper deck and enjoyed the view. When the day boat arrived it picked up Steve, me, our tour guide, and the four Aussies from the bus from yesterday (who were staying on a different big boat). Thankfully the girl was not feeling sick anymore! We sat up on the top deck in the sun and drove through Halong Bay about one and a half hours to reach our kayaking area.

On the "day boat" to the kayaking spot.

The kayaking was amazing. The water was calm and the scenery was gorgeous. It was a very tranquil place.

One of the first places we reached was a small floating fishing village. These families live on their float homes way out in Halong Bay.

This little girl appeared to be unsupervised.
She answered us in English, only after we said hello in Vietnamese!

Our guide told us that they buy food and fresh water from a boat that comes to the village every couple of days. They also sell the fish they catch to the boat. A different boat also comes by every few days to pump out their wastewater and picks up their garbage. The people that live in the houses have kids and dogs.

This is where you cook if you live in the floating village.

There is even a school and a Buddhist temple in the village! We both found it very interesting that people could live out on the water like that. When Steve heard Halong Bay is an ecological preserve and that the waste water and garbage was not just dumped in the water, he was happy because he could go swimming and not worry.

As we continued on our kayak trip we marveled at the beauty. I may have snapped a million pictures (that just totally do not capture the beauty of it!) Why wasn’t Steve taking a million pictures you ask? Well…someone had to paddle 😉

You guessed it! We broke the rules again!

We went through about three different caves that came out in small lagoons or new areas of Halong Bay. One of the caves had bats in it. A little bit creepy, but they were mostly just hanging out in the dark crevices, not flying at me, so I wasn’t freaked out...

We went through one cave that you sometimes can’t get through because the tide is too high. We were able to make it through, but at some points we had to lay down while we were paddling through. That was very cool!

When we got back to our boat we were able to go for a swim before lunch. The water seemed a bit cleaner here. Less boats, I think. I tried to get some pictures of Steve jumping in the water off the boat… and got some interesting action shots...

What exactly is Steve doing here?

My water entrance was not this exuberant!

After the swim we had another ENORMOUS lunch. Even on the day boat they feed you a ridiculous amount of food. While we were eating, our tour guide “Man” (that’s his name) was looking at our photos. He said he had never seen people’s photos from the kayaking trip. He was actually quite interested in our fancy underwater camera and was examining it quite thoroughly ☺ (Another day where that super present was perfect! Thanks again guys!)

Lisa and Man at lunch

After lunch we were able to have another swim (Side note: although I was afraid to jump off the boat, I did it twice today… even though I could have just used the ladder. Steve was very proud of me and thought maybe one day I’d jump off the second level of the boat… I don’t think so…) and then lounge on the sundeck while we were anchored. While we did this some of the crew napped, and two of them went off kayaking on their own. It was amazingly peaceful. It made us both want our own boat.

Relaxing after lunch.

After the crews “rest time”, we slowly headed back to the big boat. We were able just to lounge up on the top deck and enjoy the sun and the view. It was a perfect day. When we arrived back at the big boat our new boat mates were at the beach we visited yesterday. Steve and I just lounged in our room and watched movies on the computer before dinner.

Guess what? Dinner was another enormous spread. It was almost crazy… not almost… it WAS crazy how much food they fed you! We tried lots more interesting seafood dishes as well as other things. The presentation of the food was also incredible. The potato salad was in a dinner plate sized heart made of thin cucumber slices. It’s pretty amazing what they could do with limited space and resources!

After dinner we laid out on the upper deck and looked at the stars and “zee moon” (this made us think of Cyan… zee moon, zee fish, zee bye-bye 😀). How many ways can I say it was incredibly beautiful?!?

One of the crew gave us some rods to try some night squid fishing. We were not terribly successful but it was interesting to see the squid swim up towards the bright lights they shine off the boat. After this we turned in, and called it a night.