After being somewhat overwhelmed by spending a few full on days in Ho Chi Minh City and then Hanoi, we headed off to Ha Long Bay for some much needed chill out time! Ha Long Bay is a three hour bus trip from Hanoi, and the only downside was that it was the first time in Vietnam we had to share close immediate space with other tourists… The group of five Chinese Americans in our bus really made this part of the trip arduous – banal conversations at a level that everyone HAD to hear them, combined with the use of the word DUDE and AWESOME in every second sentence meant it took about 3 minutes before everyone else in the bus donned their iPods & reverted back to their own worlds…
Thankfully on the return trip we managed to manoeuvre ourselves into the other bus and enjoyed the trip back a lot more because of it… but ahhhh Ha Long Bay was just so beautiful! I had hoped to shoot some timelapse of dawn but it was too cloudy, but the mist made the area feel even more beautiful… We went to Ha Long Bay with Indochina Tours (what a great byline: “Luxury you deserve!” Indeed) and they were excellent – a big boat with plenty of room to avoid said loud mouths – highly reccomended!
Apart from just cruising through this dramatic landscape we also stopped in at a floating village – literally this entire village of a couple of hundred people is entirely floating, located in a very sheltered inlet.
This is the school rooms for the local kids:
We also did a trip to this inlet, which was home to a massive cave system…
Bliss! It was a very relaxing side trip & so nice to be taken care of & not have to worry about anything other than which cocktail to order next!
Amazing place! Looks like its too good to be true….like its been created by some matte paintings or some vfx work. Great pics too
OK, you can stop now. My jealously has reached it’s maximum.
heh! Sorry but theres more to come, but at least a couple of them are more immediately sound related…