On our second day in Vietnam, we hired a car to take us 2.5 hours east to the northern coast of the South China Sea. Here we boarded a small cruise ship for an overnight cruise around Ha Long Bay, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This bay is made up of thousands of steep, limestone karst islands shooting vertically up from the sea. Experiencing these islands has been the highlight of our trip so far!
We booked a cabin on a fabulous small ship through Peony Cruises. There were about 50 passengers, but there were so many places to spread out, it felt like we had the boat to ourselves. Our cabin was a large suite in the back corner of the boat with lots of windows and a large veranda. We had great views from all angles – even from the jacuzzi tub in the bathroom 😉
After a delicious buffet lunch, I ordered some Vietnamese coffee to our room to enjoy on the veranda. This was a very strong, dark coffee brewed with a pour-over contraption that sat on top of your coffee cup. It was served with sweetened condensed milk, so it was very creamy and sweet.
In the afternoon, we went kayaking in a bay that had a cave you could kayak through. On the other side was a large, fully encapsulated bay surrounded by steep mountains. This seemed straight out of a James Bond movie (yes, they did film one of them here).
We enjoyed watching the sun set behind the islands back on the boat, and learned how to make Vietnamese spring rolls before a lovely dinner in the evening.
The next morning we woke up early to get tai chi lessons on the deck, then we visited another cave on one of the largest islands called Cat Ba. This cave was on the mountain side and was one you had to walk through (sometimes crouching really low to get through).
After a brunch on board, we were transferred back to the dock where we took a car back to the Hanoi airport for our next flight to Cambodia. Vietnam was very interesting. It is definitely a work in progress everywhere you look. There are huge infrastructure and development projects in the works, but it looks like it will take decades to finish many of them. The food was fabulous, everything was very affordable, and they seem to have so much hope for the future. I would come back.
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