Halong Bay



We drove 2.5 hours from Hanoi to reach Halong Bay, a world heritage site, to board our boat - Dragon Pearl 2.



This is the terminal where the Halong Bay boats wait for the tourists to board the various cruise lines.




Once at the terminal we headed to our boat

Life jackets were mandatory for a 5 minute trip.


We have arrived in our room
Not a large room




Now we are off.  The weather was very foggy and lots of mist and rain which is typical of this time of the year.  We were glad to have our raincoats.  The scenery reminded Bob and I of Jurassic park.  Enjoy some shots of this World Heritage site.

This site would be even more spectacular had it been hot and sunny....we still loved these remarkable geological formations.  Simply amazing!





One of our stops was to visit a cave on one of the islands.  One hundred steps up, a bit of a challenge for Naomi's knee as only 5 weeks ago she had her knee surgery.  It was worth the effort to visit these limestone caves where fishermen in the past lived.
You walked down into the cave after climbing the 100 steps.
The cave entrance.
The view from the cave of the Bay below


  The cave was illuminated via the use of Honda generators / solar panels when the sun is out.



You can see the stalagmites and stalagmites were broken off by fisherman that lived there....a shame.







Some other cave shots




Now more shots of Ha Long Bay

The top deck looking forward

Other boats also out on the water. They ranged from smaller 4 passenger ones to the bigger 20+ passenger ones




This our guide Chung showing off some of our Chef's food sculptures. The room is our main (and only) dining area.



Now our chef is showing off his musical talents



2nd act..this actually 2 flutes...the shorter one for the high notes and longer one for the deeper ones. He was very good
Now we are heading to a fish and pearl farm. This floating village is in a very secluded and protected bay. There used to be over 500 hundred people living here but now only about 200. There is a Primary school here so the older kids need to be on the mainland for their education









In the bay they grew oysters and grow Pearl's for sale.

They showed us the seeding of the oysters which is done by inserting a manufactured pearl seed beside a grain of sand, which is the irritant,  causing a new pearl formation.

The pearl collection / harvesting after seeding.

The sales room after the tour - many colours and sizes were available for purchase.

The jewelers  could make any design you wanted on site.



The oysters are eaten by the fishing village people after the Pearl's are harvested.  Great tour.....side note - our boat was the slowest of the group and our fisherman guide had to paddle the hardest!!  Heavy load lol.

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