Day 7, Wednesday, 3/19/25, Ha Long Bay

The Breakfast Buffet today is very good again. After we eat, we go up to our room and pack up our bags. We also pack a day bag for our next adventure. The hotel will store our bags for us. We board the bus at 9:00 AM and drive off towards the next part of the tour. It will be a 3 hour bus ride. The sights are interesting on the drive through rice paddies with sights of what appears to be antennas that crudely look like fake trees and graveyards and memorials in the rice paddies!

Duon keeps us informed as we drive along towards Ha Long Bay. For example, Hanoi has 7 million motorcycles! 8.6 million people live here, including children. Police sometimes ‘make noise on street’ (sirens). There are a lot of houses built in Ha Long that are empty.

On the highway to Ha Long Bay. Motorcycles are not allowed on the highway! At a rest stop in Hai Phong, I buy Jackfruit to share on the bus. Very banana and mango flavor. Everyone likes it. Esther shares Pumelo with Chili Powder.

We make a stop to visit a pearl factory where pearls are harvested from oysters and sorted for size and color. Then they are made into jewelry of all kinds. We get to watch workers removing the pearls and sort them.

We board a small boat that takes us to an authentic Chinese Junk (boat) that will be our home for the next 24 hours, the “Mila Cruises”. We have an orientation meeting and then have a fabulous buffet lunch on board. After, we go up to the top of the boat and entertain our cameras with the marvels of Ha Long Bay.

Our cabin is comfortable. More comfortable that the hotel room in Hanoi!

I meet Constantino, a pediatrician on board from Romania and chat with him about his Sony camera. There are hundreds of islands and the same amount of boats cruising through them! We spot some interesting architecture but never find out what it is.

Now it’s time to get on the small boat again and go kayaking through an oyster farm! Both Elee and I want our own kayak, but there are limited numbers so we share one. We kayak around the farm and over to the shore. There are many ‘caves’ that we attempt to explore but most are illusionary or filled with floating debris.

The plastic pollution is disheartening to say the least. The thoughtlessness of humans is evident everywhere.

The kayak excursion is short and we are the last to return. We get back on the ship just in time for the next activity, hiking up one of the islands to a cave. I am feeling quite mellow and decide not to go. Elee does not go either and chooses to get a massage on board instead. A fuel tanker sidles up to us and hooks up.

I go up on top and get started with Happy Hour early. A glass of wine in hand, my camera in the other, I watch the world go by! At least I watch Ha Long Bay go by. I even spot a large cruise ship in the distance.

A small boat vendor rows up but rows away when there isn’t a crowd to greet him. Another vendor comes along in a motor powered boat but also goes away when there is no crowd to greet him. But he is an entrepreneur and comes around again. He spots me and my camera and heads for me. I step back out of sight and he floats around looking for me or anyone else. I don’t want to lead him on as I don’t want to buy his trinkets.

So I walk around and meet a new friend Nathan (with wife Faye) from the UK and we chat amicably for a while.

Elee’s massage is over and the hikers have returned. It’s Happy Hour. Turns out wine is not on Happy Hour unless you buy a bottle. So beer nuts and chicharones are all we get free. Sai la vie!

Waiting for a little more darkness for photos of boats lighting up for the night. My camera has fun shooting after dark.

Night photos are fun. Dinnertime comes around and the waiters put on a little candlelit show of their own!

Even though being tired, my camera drags me back up on deck for some more night photo fun. A couple of the boats in the bay put on light shows for all to enjoy!

Finally it’s time for bed. See you all in the morning!