Our last stop in Vietnam was Ha Long Bay. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site with around 2,000 limestone islets.
All four families booked a 3-day 2-night cruise. We got picked up at our Airbnb at 8:00 a.m. It was a three-hour journey to the dock and another 45 minutes to our cruise ship on a smaller boat.
We boarded the boat around 12:30 and ate lunch. They serve a lot of food on these ships. The omnivores had seafood soup, shrimp, crab cakes, chicken wings, rice, and salad. The herbivores ate vegetable soup, tofu, veggie tempura, rice, and salad. It was all great.
We checked into our rooms. The rooms on our boat are big. It is the biggest room we ever stayed in on a ship. We were excited that the shower was separate from the toilet, and that we had a shower with a view.
We did not have much time to rest before our first kayak excursion. We kayaked every day on the cruise. We returned to the ship for a cooking demonstration (spring rolls), squid fishing, and happy hour on the sky deck. Dinner was another satisfying meal where the dishes kept coming.
A few of us woke up the at 6:00 a.m. for Tai Chi on the sky deck. I snuck up top at 5:30 for some stretching and a view of the sunrise.
We had a full-day excursion. First, we took an hour long boat ride to Cat Ba Island where we visited Viet Hai village. Some of the group rode in electric carts for the 5km trek to the village. Lucas and I and the other part of our group rode bicycles. The bikes are old, the tires are a little flat, and they have no gears, so the hills are hard.
The first short activity was a fish foot massage. It entailed sticking out feet in the water while fish nibbled at them. It tickles. I couldn’t keep my feet in very long. Our guide, Tony, told us about the history of the island. He grew up there. He said they were poor, and they often didn’t have enough to eat. The village subsisted on the rice crop and fishing. They are trying to grow tourism now for more income. He said he would bike for 8 hours to go to university in Hanoi because the buses were so crowded.
He showed us a clay hut they used to live in before they got modern building supplies.
After biking back to the boat, we stopped at another spot for more kayaking. Vicki and I teamed up. The kids all had a blast playing bumper boats and racing. Michael had a kayak of his own.
Our last stop was supposed to be swimming at a beach. The first beach we pulled up to was full of trash. The water also looked oily. They moved the boat a little and told us to swim on the other side, which was no proper beach, but the water still was not clean. Henry swam, but Michael, Lucas, Henry, and I, and a few more people from our group decided not to go in. We did one last early morning of kayaking and water play on the last day before heading back to Hanoi.
We enjoyed spending time on the cruise with our friends. We are going our separate ways for a few weeks before we meet again in Thailand.
We worry about the future of Ha Long Bay. The water is dirty. There are over 600 boats licensed to run tours in the bay. The amount of tourism is not sustainable. It is such a pretty place. We hope that they put some measures in to keep it clean and manage tourism.
