Ha Long Bay

Saturday, we got up early, packed a small backpack, grabbed some breakfast and caught a bus to Ha Long Bay.  The day was very cool and the bus no better.  I froze the whole four hour journey to our destination.

Ha Long Bay is a world heritage site that draws a large number of tourists.  It is a combination of limestone peaks and glimmering sea.  It is serene and eerily beautiful.  Amongst the many karsts lives a group of people known as the floating village.  They are self sufficient, and make a living fishing, and selling trinkets, food and drink to visiting tourists.  At one time they were able to get their fresh water from a nearby cave.  But with the development of tourism, the cave became a destination and money maker for many other people, so the government now makes the floating village buy their fresh water.

The cave was something I wasn't expecting.  Firstly, I thought it was going to be some little tunnel our boat would float through.  But, this wasn't the case.  The cave turned out to be quite large, and it probably took us about an hour to walk through it.  It is nature at its finest, combined with humans not at their finest.  Litter and graffiti dotted the way throughout this structure. How unfortunate!!  Such a beautiful place scarred in such an ugly manner.

The Chinese styled junk we stayed on was called "The Lemon", and I was just hoping it wasn't going to be a lemon!  We discovered our stay on this junk was wonderful.  We were fed like royalty, treated like gems, and discovered friendship and merriment amongst the other guests that accompanied us.  We were sixteen in all, and Irish couple, three young Dutchmen, three young Aussies, four Malaysians, and a Ukrainian couple.  There was somewhat of a language barrier but we seemed to get through it and enjoyed each others' company!  The trip was fabulous and we were so grateful we went!