Halong Bay

From Phong Nha we went to Halong Bay with a brief stop in the city of Hanoi.  Hanoi was fun, we met some other backpackers, including Emily an American woman who had recently graduated from San Francisco University and had been traveling / working in South East Asia for the last 6 months.  Her hostel had a free happy hour, so we crashed that and met a bunch of other travelers.  We all then went out to dinner together and hit up a Sheesha bar (at Ed's encouragement/insistence).  It was the first time I'd had tobacco in over 8 years, and I have to say that I officially don't see any appeal to it anymore.  The only effect I felt was feeling like shit the next day, and my ears ringing from the overly loud house music at the bar.  I guess I'm getting too old for this shit, sorry Ed.

Halong Bay 

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The next day we headed out on a three day / two night tour of Halong Bay.  We took a boat to several nature sights around the small limestone islands there.  On the first night we stayed on the boat, and on the second night we stayed on beach bungalows.

Our Boat

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Beach Bungalows

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Halong Bay is made up of thousands of tiny limestone mountains.  The features are dramatic.  It looks like the floating mountains of Pandora.  Unfortunately we were there during the time of year when it is very foggy, and so we couldn't get the full dramatic effect of the bay.  But it was beautiful none the less.  We had fun kayaking around the little islands, stopping on little beaches we had all to ourselves, wandering through floating fishing villages, swimming in the warm waters.  There was also a lot of card games with Ed and Chuk and general merriment both on the boat and on the beach.

Little island with beach and rock climbing

Kayaking at sunset

Cards with the boys