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- Feb 7, 2024, 5:10pm
- 🌬 16 °C
- Altitude: Sea level
- VietnamHòn Trà Ngư20°45’58” N 107°4’17” E
Ha Long Bay
February 7 in Vietnam ⋅ 🌬 16 °C
We left Hanoi for Ha Long Bay - the last 'real' stop for us on this trip. We were picked up early by our tour guide and driven 2hrs to the marina, where we transferred to a small boat to reach our cruise ship. We arrived at the cruise ship around 1pm, where we had some time to wander around the luxury cruise ship, meet the other guests and have lunch before we went out for a kayak that afternoon. We had a nice afternoon of kayaking around the limestone mountains (although Mike did most of the paddling, as usual). After the kayak, Mike jumped into the water for a quick dip as the sunset. Unfortunately, we had cloudy weather and the water wasn't very warm so the swim didn't last very long. Our first day of the cruise ended with a delicious buffet dinner, and an early night (as we're very tired these days). As we docked in Lan Ha Bay, there were much fewer boats around (50 boats in Lan Ha Bay, versus 1000 in Ha Long Bay) and absolutely no other boats docked near us, which made for a peaceful night.
On the second day of our cruise, we went out to Cat Ba Island and hiked up to Dinh Ngu Lam in Cat Ba National Park. After our hike, we visited Hospital Cave (a cave used as a hospital during the Vietnam War) and the local market in Cat Ba town. We headed back to the ship around 3pm, and had a slow afternoon before dinner. After dinner, we decided to give squid fishing a try for a laugh. We were not expecting to catch anything, but about 15min into fishing, Mike caught a 10cm squid! Cass almost caught one too, but pulled her line too abruptly and lost it. After the excitement of catching Mike's squid, we realized our guide had left with the squid. No less than 5min later, we find him in the kitchen where he has already boiled the squid for his dinner! He was just about to chop it up to eat it before we arrived.
On our last morning, we woke up early for a bike ride to Viet Han village on Cat Ba Island. It was a nice short 6km bike ride along the waters edge and through caves, and we eventually made our way to the town where we saw traditional houses and farms. The rest of the day was spent cruising back to the mainland, where we were transferred back to Hanoi for our last night in Vietnam.Read more