Day 2 and 3 of North Vietnam Trip, Ha Long Bay on January 8/9, 2018

I will combine the second and third day of our Vietnam trip in one post as we were touring Ha Long Bay in these two days.

The images in this post are hosted on Imgur. Email me should there be any display problems.

Thousands of island rising spectacularly from the ocean to compose what's nowadays knows as Ha Long Bay. Its stunning views were largely what attracted me to North Vietnam this winter. And it didn't disappoint.

If there must be some regret, the dull cloudy skies meant vividness in the photos could only come from Photoshop, so I used a lot of it. And when there's too much post-processing, photos became paint as reality were replaced by creativity, which was beautiful but at the same time deceiving to the eye.
Plus, in all the advertisements of Ha Long Bay tours, I saw junks sprinkled around Ha Long Bay with their sails wild open, and their distinctive sails gave rise to the name "junk" among ships. It would be great to see some relics of vessels that had sailed these waters for centuries, but unfortunately when photographers for ad agencies were gone, so were those sails as practicality seemed to come first. Sad.

So in the morning a minivan picked us up from our hotel in downtown Hanoi and took us to Ha Long. It's only 140km but it's a three-hour drive through two-land country road among rice fields and villages. Oh yeah, our tour guide told us this mystery that local police along the way would only issue speeding tickets to non-local vehicles, with touring minivans a huge-value target in their eye, so we must adhere to the speed limit and while doing so, shouldn't be surprised to see other vehicles passing us. Well, since the trip couldn't be cut short enough to visit (enough of) Ha Long Bay in one day, better safe than sorry.

We stopped at this artist workshop for a break during the trip, and it sold everything from sculptures to snacks and knit art.

After that, we arrived at a harbor when we were transferred through a tender to our ship, yes, it's only a ship.

Once onboard, we checked out our room. It was nowhere close to any staterooms on modern cruise ships (and nowhere photo-ready), but given the size of overnight tour boats of Ha Long Bay (mostly around 10 rooms) I would say it's nonetheless a private room and I shouldn't expect too much. There was running water (I don't know whether that's fresh water or not), a functioning flush toilet, a heated shower (surprise, although we decided not to use it for the night), and a functioning air conditioner. Sound isolation was poor but I was really pleased with everything else.

At about half past 12 we set sail for inner Ha Long Bay, cruising at a comfortable 12km/h.

After about two hours we arrived at the first stop on the itinerary, a visit to a floating pearl farm. We were shown the production process of pearl, followed by pitching of some extravagantly expensive pearls.

After that we spent an hour or so kayaking in the surrounding area. It was my first time kayaking and I managed to stay afloat while weaving my way through touring boats. Not bad.

And after that we sailed for the overnight anchor point.

Just past 5pm, we arrived at our overnight anchor point. In just a few minutes, my Photoshop style the sky turned from cyan blue to fiery pink.

After dinner, it was pitch dark among the islands of Ha Long Bay. Distant city lights assured glimpses of civilization. I watched heartbeats of this Bay as lanterns from nearby ships cast dancing reflections, while the rest of the Bay went to sleep.

Some crew members organized the more energetic of us a cuttlefish fishing activity. Well, I would enjoy fishing very much should somebody else take care of the nasty business of preparing bait (and there never was), so I wisely stood back, as cuttlefish would eject quite some nasty juice while it's caught. One fella did catch one, at the cost of quite some stains on his shirt though.

The next morning it was still cloudy, which meant lots of photoshopping was still necessary. We sailed for Sung Sot Cave (Amazing Cave), one of the largest in the Ha Long Bay area.

Sung Sot Cave

A series of steps lead us to the entrance of Sung Sot Cave, which was a good photo spot for the hills and waters nearby.

Sung Sot Cave was made of multiple chambers, with the last being the largest. Our guide told us in the rainy season, the locals would resort to water pumps to keep the cave accessible. Good thing that we were visiting in the dry season, I didn't need umbrellas in the cave.

At this point my mom began complain how un-amazing these rocks appeared to her. The lights in Sung Sot Cave were no different from the ones in a public park. However, all the caves she had previously visited in China were illuminated in vivid colors, with tour guides going through great lengths giving each piece of rock a name, like "dog" "pen" "dragon" etc. Well, as a heavy user of Photoshop, I didn't think I have the grounds to argue with her.
Oh, maybe machine learning could make those naming tasks a bit less imagination-intensive for Chinese tour guides.

After that, we sailed back, passing even more amazing landscape.

I knew some rocks in Ha Long Bay were featured on 200,000 VND note, I thought it was this Hon Ga Choi. So I took one note out and tried to do a quick comparison. An attentive crew member quickly corrected me that it's still to come.

After passing this money rock, we were just minutes from shore and conclusion of 24 spectacular hours afloat. The same minivan dropped us back at our hotel in Hanoi, and we decided to call it a day.

END