gUnZ reFleCtiOnS: Vietnam Day 6: Hanoi to Ha Long Bay (Part 1)

After we arrived at Hanoi on the overnight train from Lao Cai at 4 am, we hailed a cab that took us from the train station to our hostel at Tam Thuong Street. The cab driver made a big round in the city before arriving at our hostel as it was on meter but there was nothing we can do as the streets were quite dark and we were not too familiar with the roads there.

Luckily, there was a bell outside our hostel and the hostel staff opened the door for us. We freshened ourselves up and waited from 4.30 am to 7.30 am for the bus going to Ha Long Bay to arrive.

We checked our emails and played some computer games in the meantime.

Playing bomberman

We boarded the minibus next and they picked up more people at other hostels until the bus is full. Headed to Ha Long Bay which is about 4 hours of bus journey away.

We stopped at a warehouse selling clothes, souvenirs, paintings, etc at jacked up prices. Most of us didn't buy anything there.

Warehouse stopover

We reached the jetty at 11.30 am and proceeded to board the junk boat. A brief introduction of Ha Long Bay from Wikipedia is as follows.

Halong Bay is a bay located in the Gulf of Tonkin, 170 kilometres east of Hanoi, in northern Vietnam near the border with China. The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves.

There are two bigger islands, Tuan Chau and Cat Ba, that have permanent inhabitants. Both of them have tourist facilities, including hotels and beaches. There are a number of wonderful beaches on the smaller islands. The bay was World Heritage listed by UNESCO at the 18th meeting of the Committee of the World Heritages of UNESCO. It is one of Vietnam's most popular tourist destinations.