Our night on Ha Long Bay was definitely the highlight of our trip to Vietnam. Our only regret is that we only stayed one night. When I booked the trip, I wasn't sure how the children would do sleeping on a boat. It turns out, the kids loved it.
Our journey started with a 3 hour bus ride from Hanoi to Ha Long Bay. We stopped once at a craft school for disabled. They made these large statues and all kinds of other crafts (paintings, clothes, furniture, jewelry, etc.). There were 2 other families on the bus with us. One family ended up being on our boat too. They are an Australian family living in Hong Kong, with 2 kids, a 5 year old girl and 9 year old boy. My kids and their kids played their little hearts out. It was perfect! The second family on our bus was from Singapore and they actually live across the street from us! The dad is one of the Year 1 teachers at the school where my kids go! He recognized Lily and me. Such a small world!
Our boat was the Dragon Pearl. We had 2 rooms. Scott, Madeline and Wyatt shared one room and Lily and I shared the other. There were 11 rooms total on the boat and 19 passengers (12 crew). On our boat were Australians, French and Norwegians.
We set sail at about noon. A fabulous lunch was prepared as we embarked on our journey. Our boat had 3 levels. Our rooms were on the bottom level, the mid level had the dining room and an open deck and the top was open with lounge chairs. The weather was fantastic and the scenery was stunning.
Our first stop was at one of the large rock formations. We hiked around it and inside! There was a large cave inside that we got to explore. Our guide told us that they found the cave about 10 years ago and there was a family living inside. The family had been living in the cave for about 10 years. They found it to be a wonderful home because it was cool in the summer, warm in the winter and good protection from bad weather. The family agreed to sell their cave to the tour company and relocated to a nearby floating village.
This is our boat!
After exploring the cave, we got to do some sea kayaking around some of the rock formations. Then we played on the soft beach!
Next, we headed back to our boat to travel to our cove for the night. Once there, we dropped anchor and watched the sun set from the top deck.
It was nearly a full moon!
The next morning, we were off again early and we traveled to the floating village.
Once at the village, we got a private boat tour of the village by one of the ladies that live there. The villagers catch fish and also farm fish. There is also a Pearl Farm. We saw the school where the children take lessons too. It seemed to be a simple and peaceful life.
This woman was chopping up small fish and feeding the large fish in the fish farm.
My cuties (a little sunny)!
Scott tried rowing the boat and found it pretty tough to steer it!
This woman works to place small white beads in the oysters and then puts them in a cage and drops it in the water to wait for 20 years. She also works to extract the pearls that were placed in the oysters 20 years ago.
After our village tour, we went back to the harbor and returned to Hanoi. We really enjoyed Ha Long Bay and wish we had stayed longer.
1 comment:
Looks amazing!
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