4 days ago we boarded a bus from Hanoi to Halong Bay. We were going to board a boat that we would sleep on for one night and sleep on an island called Cat Ba for the 2nd night, we were taking a cruise called Vega Cruise. There were 12 people on the boat including us, 3 from Quebec, 2 from Romania, 1 from Italy, 1 other from Toronto and 1 from Germany. 8 Canadians!!!!  Our guide Thang, pronounced Tongue was very nice and funny. Our boat left the pier at about 12:30pm. We had two rooms on the boat, one room with two twins that me and my mom were sharing and another room with a double for my dad and Denise. Soon after we left the pier, we were called up to the dining room for lunch. The lunch was so delicious and it was a very big portion, after lunch I was very full. For a little bit we hung out on the Sun Deck on the roof of the boat, although there was not much sun 😩😭. I read my book called “The Serpent’s Shadow” and enjoyed the scenery of Halong. After that we took kayaks around the bay for 2 hours and stopped at two caves. Trong Cave (Drum Cave) and Fairy Lake Cave. When we got back to the boat we had showers and relaxed for a little bit in our rooms. We anchored in a pretty spot for dinner, which by the way was very good and stayed in that spot for the night. I had a little trouble falling asleep but luckily I fell asleep not too late because we needed to have breakfast at 6:30am!! The reason for that is that we needed to get to the biggest cave in Halong before it got too busy. The biggest cave was called Surprising Cave, you can see it in photos 5&6. In the cave Thang told us the legend of Halong Bay. Vietnam was in war with China and China was coming with a lot of soldiers on a big boat to fight the Vietnamese in Halong Bay. At that time the Vietnamese did not have any boats except some small fishing boats. They had no other choice than fighting so their best soldiers set out on a fishing boat. They were all thinking “We are about to die”. They prayed and prayed for good fortune. Suddenly some dragons came and dropped rocks and diamonds into the water which became all of Halong’s islands, then the Chinese could not come in to the harbour so they just went back to China and Vietnam was at peace. There are over 2000 islands in halong but they say 1969 have names because that is the year Ho Chi Minh died. Surprising Cave is said to be the home of the dragons. The Vietnamese name for Surprising Cave is Hang Sung Sot. After that we made our way to Ti Top Mountain, Ti Top was a Russian general who supported Ho Chi Minh. We climbed Ti Top Mountain and at the top got great views of Halong Bay. After Ti Top we changed boats to a boat with no sleeping rooms, just tables. We took that boat for about an hour to Cat Ba Island. We rented bikes and rode on Cat Ba to a village called Viet Hai. We stopped at a rice wine making house and the adults drank rice wine, it had snakes in it!!!!!! You can see the wine with snakes in photo 10. We rode our bikes some more and parked them at a restaurant. We started to walk in the forest and we went through a cave and at the end there was a very hard hike up a mountain. Thang thought Denise might not be able to do it so dad, Denise, and 3 other people walked back the way we came. Me and my mom started the hike, it was pretty hard, at one point there was a platform that was like a foot wide and behind you was sheer cliff and you had to climb up the other side, it was so scary! You can see photos of the hike, they are photos 11, 12, 13, and 14. The way down was harder but we finally got there and met up with the rest of the team at the restaurant. We biked back to the pier and got back on the boat. As soon as we took off they served us lunch which was very good, as per usual. Then we took the boat to a nice part of Halong and we kayaked for a while, then we went swimming while the boat was stopped. I jumped off the top of the boat, you can see me in Video 2. You can see our boat with rooms in photo 9. Then we made our way back to Cat Ba and stayed at a hotel called Hung Long Hotel. For dinner we went to a restaurant called Casa Bonita, I got a smoothie bowl which was great. Unfortunately the night we were staying there was the Women’s Day Gala Dinner so they were blasting loud music until 9pm. We had to have breakfast at 7:00am so we woke up at 6:30 to pack. We had breakfast at the hotel and took a minivan to the pier, we boarded the boat again, then changed back to the sleeping boat for some relax time. We had lunch just before arriving to the pier in Halong City. After that we boarded a bus to Ninh Binh. What an adventure that was.

Me jumping off the boat.