Posted by Chrystal McKay on Feb 3, 2010 in Asia, Vietnam

Vietnam – Day 9 and 10 – Halong Bay

Halong Bay looks like pirates of the caribbean! All the boats are called “Junks”. That is not in reference to their quality but is a Chinese name for the type of boat. That is the extent of my knowledge on that subject!

We also went into the “Amazing Cave”. Which is a cave of stalactites. It was massive, but it was lite up with coloured lights so was extremely touristy and not as beautiful as it could of been. Then we went kayaking through some of these island rock formations through tunnels and into a cove area and there were MONKEYS.

I was the 5th person in the group, so I did not have a pair for kayaking. I ended up paired with the Tour Guide. Which turned out to be the BEST partner because he told me stories about the area and random facts about Vietnam that I would not of gotten if I had gone with another tourist. So It was really neat to sit and talk to this local for about 2 hours. But we then fed the Monkeys peanuts – but the tour guide warned me not to get too close to the shore cause the monkeys would come and bite me. Monkey Attacks? I’ll stay far back thank you very much. We got farily close and they showed us their monkey teeth. I was scared. But no monkey attack.

After we returned from Kayaking we went swimming. It was like 15 degrees outside – It was freeeeeeeeeeezzzzzzzzzzzinggggggggggg! We got to climb to the top of the Junk and jump off of it.

And then crazy enough, a lady we had met on teh night bus from Hoi An to Ninh Binh, we ended up seeing again in Halong Bay. This little boy was on our “Junk” with us.