Ha Long Bay

I am so glad that our travel agency, Tonkin Travel, ended our vacation with a 2 night stay in Ha Long Bay. It’s a 4 hour drive from Ha Noi to Ha Long Bay, but we had a restroom break at a wonderful craft shop that employs local disabled individuals to make crafts

Most of the men and women were making amazing embroidery

The embroidery is fantastic. We fell in love with a black / white / grey piece and were taken to meet the craftswoman who embroidered it (she is both deaf and mute). We can’t wait to find a place to hang the piece at home.

After the stop, we continued on to Ha Long Bay and boarded the “junk” (boat) that was to serve as our home for 2 nights (here the boat is shown when we anchored in Bai Tu Bay). The boat has only 24 rooms.

Ha Long Bay is located in the Guly of Tonkin, the northern arm of the South China Sea. As a lot of the junks cruise in Ha Long Bay, making it very crowded, Indochina Junk (the company who owns the Dragon Legend junk we were on) chooses to go a little to the northeast and cruise in Bai Tu Long Bay. The area is full of islands made of limestone and amazing caves, nooks and crannies that are karst formations which occur as the limestone dissolves over time.

The scenery in the bay is breathtaking

We enjoyed swimming in the cool water, but needed to be very mindful of the jellyfish which were plentiful and huge. The boat had a jellyfish spotter watch for them as we swam.

The next day we were taken to the largest floating village in Ha Long Bay. The residents live full time either on their boats, fishing, or in houses that float in the bay. Our tender was met by women who rowed us around their neighborhood.

Before we got to the village proper, we met the local “supermarket”; essentially a boat with goods that travels from house to house.

The village itself is quite a sight. It’s a collection of small groups of homes or buildings that are anchored in the bay.

In order to help the village survive economically, the villagers have been taught other means of income. Aside from tourism, they also farm oysters for making pearls. Here is the oyster farm:

One of the three types of oysters that they farm (the oysters are chosen due to the different colored pearls that they can grow):

Here he is seeding an oyster that will then be put back in the water so that the oyster can make the pearl.

And after months to years of growth, when opened, there is a beautiful pearl insider the oyster.

As we left the village, we had an opportunity to go into a spectacular tunnel in the karst.

The next day we were taken to a small beach for lunch,

and then had an opportunity to climb 100 steps to visit a cave in the mountain (one of the oldest such caves in Bai Tu Long Bay). Despite my fear of heights I am so glad I made the climb. The cave was fantastic.