Halong Bay Day 2

Up bright and early this morning for a busy day! Breakfast was at 6:30 am - unfortunately we missed the Tai Chi lesson on the sun deck but had a nice buffet breakfast in the dining room. There are 2 options for this cruise, and some of the people we met had chosen the one night cruise so we’re leaving today. We said our goodbyes, and a group of 7 of us who chose the 2 night option boarded a “day boat” for our full day adventure. We departed the cruise boat around 8:30, picked up some passengers from another cruise boat, and were on our way. The new passengers were a group of 5 young men who go to Cornell University, but are doing a “study abroad” program in Australia. They were from New York and Florida and were on a school break travelling around Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam - such a delightful bunch!

We headed off through more islands for the one hour boat ride to Cat Ba Island - the biggest in the area. Our tour guide, Bora, walked us through what we would be doing for the day and we were on our way to a small village on Cat Ba Island. We got off the boat at the village and were provided with bicycles to take us along the 4 km trail to the village. The trail was really well maintained, with just a couple of hills, so it was a nice easy ride. The village itself has a population of about 300 and is very remote, catering mostly to tourists. Our first stop was at a little restaurant where Bora gave us lots of information about the particular area, and Vietnam in general. We walked around and saw a big bull tied up in the boggy field, and goats in the adjoining field. Back on our bikes to the next stop where we got to sample varieties of Vietnamese rice wine! There was the regular rice wine, banana, honey and hibiscus flavours, and one jar with snakes marinated in the wine - we tried all but the latter! From there we went to the “foot massage” area, which is actually a little pond with little black fish which nibble the dry skin off your feet! I’ve seen this done in tanks before, but not in this environment with bigger fish (which were about 3” long!). Quite the fun experience! Back to the boat where they had prepared a delicious lunch of seafood, chicken, vegetables and rice!

Our next stop was near a lovely beach and we went kayaking again to get to it. The white sand and shells were beautiful and we spent a little time exploring before returning to the boat, where some of the braver souls jumped off for a swim. It was then time to start the hour boat ride back to our cruise boat, we said goodbye to the Cornell students, and arrived back around 4pm, giving us some time to rest before dinner.

Dinner was another amazing 5 course meal - the food really has been first class on this little cruise! We sat with Pete and Sam, a lovely English couple, and Miriam, Chris and James from France! Had a great evening with our new friends and made great contacts for future trips! 😜Read more