We've just had a gorgeous experience over the last couple of days. We visited Halong Bay. Imagine a landscape of over 2000 small limestone islets rising about 200m out of the greenyblue waters of the Gulf of Tonkin, shrouded in mist and you have a picture of the magical mystical experience we just had! It is undoubtedly the top natural wonder of Vietnam - also a World heritage site.
There were 11 of us on a 16 person brand new chinese-like junk - pure LUXURY! Two days and one night cruising between the islets, seafood aplenty on the menu, gorgeous little berths, lovely little ensuites - so no sharing (remind me to tell you about some of my toilet experiences here in VN another time!!), and just sitting around relaxing, admiring the view and swimming.... just bliss!
We were very lucky with the weather - it had rained constantly the day before but the sun shone just as we approached the boat (3.5 hours drive east of Hanoi). There was just enough mist to give it a mystical feel.
Halong translates as "where the dragon descends into the sea". Legend has it that the islands were created by a dragon that livd in the mountains. As it ran towards the coast it's tail gouged out valleys and crevasses; as it plunged into the sea the areas dug up by the tail became filled with water leaving only the high land visible.
We got back to bustling Hanoi (a bit of a shock after all the quiet of the sea) about 2 hours ago and have to kill time before we get on a train to Sapa (the hill area where we hope to trek to some of the tribal villages) at 9pm.
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