Winter season Days in the Bay
Winter season Days in the Bay of the Descending Dragon
Winter season isn't always the very best time to cruise tour to halong bay from Hanoi, the very best time normally falls around summer time, when the bay is warm and the days last longer then in the winter. Nonetheless, my quick winter trip was wonderful and better then I expected when I went on a Ha Long Bay cruise in December.
We showed up in Hanoi at 8:00 a.m. and we got to Bai Chay port around 11:30 am. As I left the vehicle, the salty sea air blew with my hair, the northeast monsoon covered the entire port with a fresh, cold breeze. Up in the air, there were some eagles zipping; this was the first time, I saw an eagle that close. It took about 1 hour on our junk (a Vietnamese cruise liner) to get to Ha Long Bay. There is no doubt in my mind why Halong Bay was acknowledged by UNESCO as a World Natural Heritage website. My first idea of the scrap ship we took out on our Ha Long Bay cruise was that it looked like a small floating hotels and resort. Having a look inside the rooms and other offices, I was amazed by its modern, captivating feel. The spaces on board the ship satisfied the requirements for a typical 4 star hotel, but we just weren't at a hotels and resort, we were navigating out at sea on wood vessel; I was amazed.
Our junk navigated slowly on the green water while we took pleasure in lunch with pleasantly fresh sea food. After lunch, I had some leisure time to unwind before our kayaking trip on Ha Long bay in the afternoon. I took my favorite book and read it on the sundeck where I might get a nice tan. Sitting on the easy chair, a light breeze blew all around me, as I looked around; our scrap was surrounded by towering karsts emerging out of the water. The sun shone over the karsts on an unusual warm day in winter season.
Ha Long Bay has over 2,000 islets with thousands of limestone karsts. Long back, the Vietnamese people chose the islets in Halong bay provided many fantastic concealed treasures. Many of the islets were named according to their shape: Ga Chá" i (Fighting cocks) islet, Dua (Chopsticks) islet, Cho Da islet (Stone dog) and many others. Since the French colonial period, the french discovered the primitive beauty of Ha Long Bay, they were impressed by it a lot that the image of Ha Long Bay was utilized on the nations stamps, postcards and various other documents. Ha Long Bay is also popular for its caves and grottos such as: Sung Sot (Shocked) cavern and Thien Cung (Sky Place) grotto. In side each cavern or grotto there are concealed chambers with stalactites dropping from the ceiling, producing an outstanding experience as you kayaking with the caverns.
Throughout the afternoon, we kayaked with a drifting town called Cua VẠ¡ n. Paddling around the village, observing the life of people who live every day in the drifting town was an experience I can't describe with words alone. In the drifting village, if you wish to see your neighbor, you need to make use of a watercraft to go see him, otherwise your choice is to swim. That's why the citizens here state that the kids can swim and row prior to they can even walk. Exploring Ha Long Bay is a gorgeous location for checking out and experiencing as a traveler, however for fishermen here Halong bay is a blessing from above and their main source for earning a living. The range of marine environments in Ha Long Bay brings fishermen numerous kinds of seafood that only Halong has. We paddled by a fisherman while on our kayaks; he was on a small watercraft with his fresh catch of crab for the day. We acquired some of the newly caught crab, put them in a bag in our kayak with strategies to give them to the cruise liner's chef for supper tonight. As we continued our kayaking journey on the bay we kayaked into a series of caves. Regardless of the bright sun outside, it got darker and darker as we paddled deeper into the cavern, hundreds of stalactites dropped down all around us.
After enjoying the caves, we chose to paddle back to the cruise liner for supper. For dinner that night, our chef shocked us once more with a variety of fantastic seafood made in both standard Vietnamese and Western design and naturally he prepared a special delicious dish from our fresh crabs that we brought him earlier. After dinner we enjoyed drinks at the ship bar and exchanged laughs between the ships personnel and eachother of the days occasions. They shared their watercraft tales with us of their experiences cruising on halong bay vietnam.
The next morning I awakened early to catch the lovely rising sun on the deck of our cruise liner, which I was told from the personnel was a need to see. Waking up at 5:30 am, there was nothing however darkness, I was disappointed thinking that the day would be foggy and cool. Entirely covered in my blanket standing on the sun deck of the cruise ship I kept an eye out over Ha Long Bay and frantically waited. Lastly, my patience settled, straight in front of the bow of the ship, the sun slowly rose above 2 limestone pillars. Looking behind me on the stern, the full-moon was still in the sky and plainly noticeable, it was a magical moment seeing both the aurora sky behind me and the red, yellow and pink sky in front of me. As I watched the sunlight review the green water, iridescent as honey, I believed to myself that I have actually never seen the sun and the moon this big before, I felt that I could reach out and hold it with my hands. Black karsts slowly turned deep green as the sun increased over them and the wildlife got up as I viewed eagles fly overhead as they began browsing for breakfast. Birds all around started singing, taking a deep breath, I enjoyed the nature that surrounded us.