Ha Long Bay

Being back in Hanoi is odd - flying into the airport saying “we’ve already seen the airport”. 😂 But we’re back with not much to do just waiting out the storm.

The first time here we went to Lan ha bay, bummer finding out we couldn’t get to “famous” Ha Long bay from Cat Ba Island. (I had serious fear of missing out.) Ha Long bay is a UNESCO world heritage site - it MUST be better, right?

So we decided to take advantage of the great weather and go back to the area and took a cruise on Ha Long bay this time, and …. Found that Lan ha bay was better!! Who knew?!? (But now I know).

There were a few additions, which were nice. We were taken to a pearl farm (very interesting watching them “nucleate” the oysters) and went in row boats into a cove where there were monkeys! Finding we love monkeys. Also we were able to see Sung Sot cave - it was massive. In one area bigger than a football field. Caves in Vietnam are famous and being the rainy season, most are shut down for fear of flooding so I hadn’t been able to go to any. This gave me a taste.

This cruise tho had such a different vibe. Our first one was tailored to young, backpacker type people. Adventurous, no rules, jump from the third deck kind of cruise. This one today had a rule for everything. Limited adventure, no swimming unless in a designated roped off beach area - which most didn’t even swim. Definitely tailored to a tourist type crowd. But … now I’ve seen both, and we clearly like adventure!

The storm is hitting Hoi An very badly as expected. So glad we left. They evacuated 800,000 people yesterday.

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