Halong Bay

Everything the guidebooks say about Hanoi recommends a trip to Halong Bay, so of course, we had to do it.  We booked an excellent two day (or more like, 1.5 day), one night cruise from Hanoi to Halong Bay. The long drive was well worth the scenery when we finally arrived. The views of the thousands of islands in the bay are truly breathtaking. The trip started out with a yummy lunch on board followed by a kayak trip through a floating village. Since our group was odd numbered, I offered to take the single  boat in hopes of burning a few extra calories to compensate for all of the fried spring rolls I've eaten since arriving in Vietnam. One of two "kayaccidents" aside, the kayak adventure was a lot of fun. Zahra, Laura and I almost ended up at a pearl farm somehow (I never was good at navigating on the open seas) and ran into the wrong side of the dock while coming in, but I had a blast. 

After returning to the boat, the crew was hosting a sad excuse for what they called a Sunset Party. That didn't stop us from getting down with some karaoke after dinner though. The selection of songs was pretty meager but we managed to belt out some Spice Girls and Celene Dion to a crowd of exactly one geriatric Italian man who thought we were awesome. Our off-key singing must have sent the rest of the boat to bed early.

I woke up for sunrise the next morning where I met our Italian friend (alone again...where was this guy's wife all the time?). Sadly, the fog was too think to see the sunrise so I went back to bed.  After trying to sort out whether we would make our flight with the tour guide in a hilarious exchange where we told her our flight was at six and she replied "is it the DUMBEST flight?" we finally realized that she was trying to say domestic, we packed up our stuff and loaded back into the dingy for a visit to the Surprise Cave. It really was a surprise too, because none of us realized we were going there. It actually gets its name from its surprising size or location (I honestly don't know, to be honest), but it was pretty cool.

Turns out, our flight was not the DUMBEST flight also, because we made it to the airport in time to catch our flight to Danang for the next leg of our trip in Hoi An.