Hanoi, Vietnam Part 2

Halong Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Vietnam. I was told we muuuust come to Halong Bay when you visit Vietnam, so we went on the 2nd day.

So the package we took was this, 4 hours bus drive from 8am (!!), from the Hotel to Halong Bay. Takes at least 15 minutes of boat ride from the port to Halong Bay, where we will be served lunch (not very good), play around on the boat, see some staglamites in a cave, then 15 minutes boat ride back to the port, and another 4 hours drive back to Hanoi.

So for 4 hours, we were sitting ass to ass with a couple of tourist (a pack van). We thought at least the tour guide would have the decency to tell us some history on Halong Bay or Hanoi, but noo, he sat in front and just chatted with the driver. Man!!


So we amuse ourselves by taking a couple of pictures in the van and made a deal with each other. If either falls asleep and starts snoring, we're suppose to nudge the other person up to stop it. Hehe. Mostly May is the one snoring though..

This place is a tourist spot, so there are so many many people here, and the sad part is when you see the boats leaving the port, the water here is extremely polluted, the dirty water or oil from the boat can be seen pouring out of the boat into the sea. It's just so sad to see a UNESCO heritage place being so dirty and smelly. The amount of boats parked at the bay are too many to count.































The fishing village


















Huuh, at sea also got people sell fruits??

I think this is suppose to resemble a lion. It kinda looks like one though




























Okay, next are the stalagmites. First time I see a cave so brightly lighted with different colors and packed with tourist. Inside is pretty cool. Basically, our tour guide uses his laser pen and points out some stones, and said to use our "imagination" to point our some different animals and lookalike human stones in there. Ya sure, that's sooooo something I want to see..

I think this was suppose to be something about from hell, looking up to heaven, hence the small bright light at the top of the cave.

Some kinda waterfall. A couple of coins in there, is it a wishing pond?

The boats waiting outside the cave

After Halong Bay, it's back to the 4 hour journey back to Hanoi. During the toilet break, the driver dropped us off at some ceramic place, which was quite a snooze. Everything in there is in USD though. Strange isn't it, that nearly everything in Vietnam is in USD instead of Dong's.