Ha Long Bay

Its another cold and foggy day and we are really missing our beaches in Mui Ne and Phu Quoc but had decided to spend the last 5 days in Ha Long Bay before we flew out of Hanoi for Paris on the 5th.  We'd hired a private car to take us the 140kms from Ninh Binh to Haiphong Harbour.  We somehow ended up with the slowest driver (outside of that bus to Can Tho) on the road.  Even scooters were passing us at points.  Our drive took over 3 hours but we were happy to find out that we could catch a high speed hydrofoil over to Cat Ba Island in two hours (1pm) when we got there so we grabbed a very good lunch from a restaurant across the street and watched Slyvester the Cat try to get Tweety Bird with the staff while we waited for the boat.

The bridges around Haiphong were fairly heavily bombed during the war with the US trying to stop Russian, French, Swedish and Chinese ships mostly from bringing in war materials for the south.  Johnson had refused to allow his pilots to bomb any of the ships/docks as he was worried about the impacts of hitting a non-combatant ship even though those very ships were bringing in guns/ammo to kill US troops.  Yet another paradox from the war.  If you are going to fight a war, you go all the way.  You don't telegraph to the enemy what they can/can't get away with.

The Hydrofoil was an experience.  I'd never been on one.  It was interesting but every time he had more than a 10 degree course correction, he'd stop the boat and point it in the new direction and then start up once again.  It was a bit strange but had a very smooth ride.   Then we got a hotel in Cat Ba City and arranged a 2 day/1 night boat trip through Ha Long Bay which I'll cover by saying, is amazing.  Jen did her usual bargaining and managed to get us on a boat for about 25% of the going rate with a commedian for a guide.  We had a ball.  I'll let the pictures speak for themselves but we just wished it was another 15 degrees hotter and less f/smog.  Being here in summer would be even more spectacular but then it's also monsoon season!

Somewhere out there is our junk

Our taxi to the junk

Feeding the fish in the fish farm (they were some fairly large monsters in here!)

On the road again....

A junk like ours

Chopstick Island... for obvious reasons

And more caves too!

More caves too!

Local fish market (they are all alive).  She would collect your money with the net behind her and then pass you up the handle so you could collect your fish!

This was the bank we used most often in Vietnam... do not know if this one had an ATM or not....

A Ha Long Pickup

Those are all shells in the background... about 200 feet up in a cave.  I guess that sea level does change every once in a while... and without Global Warming to boot!

Le Boat...  our home for 2 days

We got to do some kayaking through some more caves into private lagoons.  Caves, Kayaks and Mountain climbing...  can never get enough of it!

A Sea Urchin (there were thousands of them on the shallow bottom beneath us).  They can leave a very nasty sting when they get bigger but these little fellas are harmless (and fun to watch slowly crawl using their spines).

Thatès Jen & Shawn going in there...

Clam pots

Mussel and Fish Farming... we saw them with 100 Kg Groupers!

A giant cuddlefish... they mate 100 times a day or some such we were told... I know I saw enough of them doing it!

Doing the blog.... (and Jennifer is ALWAYS cold).

Our accomodations... plenty warm enough!

Pointedly ignoring the guy with the camera... like that'll keep her pictures out of the blog!

Some of us weren't bothered by the cool weather!

Some Red Tide... nasty stuff.

Monkey Island..... wonder why they call it that?