After visiting the grottoes and the lagoons, we were brought back to the village.

 Peddling towards the floating settlement.

A peek inside the house. With 29 inch flat screen tv, life here is quite convenient. I wonder where they get the electricity. To totally rely on power generators must be tedious. I was quite amazed with the water village at Ha Long actually, and it is quite different from other floating villages that I’d been.  Mostly the settlements are very near to the land, but this one was set up alone in the middle of the sea. Any connection with outside world is merely on those tourists junks, although the exposure is quite international. :)

The cheerful school kids, peeping the visitors through the window.

Yup, they even have school and grocery shop at the village!

Another settlement with an attached boat. Suddenly I felt like I was in the Waterworld movie set.

 Our blue raft.

Another posh looking junk, with triple decks. Definitely with sleep-on-board facility.

Half-full cup of tea (or is it half-empty?) spotted at the pontoon when we returned from our short tour around the grottoes.

Back on board, I saw these two guys doing the dishwashing on my way to the loo.

The crockery and some left overs.

Kitchen towels and what’s not.

In the main deck, the golden oriental logo printed on the vibrant red cushion caught my attention.

Soon we were on the move again, towards our next destination.

Sailing passed the Fighting Cocks formation, Ha Long iconic landmark.

And head to head with another junk. We won.

Our next stop was the Thien Cung Cave, or locally known as the “Cave of the Heavenly Palace“.

Inside the majestic cavern of Thien Cung Cave, nicely illuminated with colorful lights. It felt like stepping into a fantasy world. A total difference compared to my previous caving experience, where it always dark, damp and gloomy.

Vietnamese likes to throw moneys everywhere. If throwing coins in Trevi Fountain is to ensure your return to Rome, I’m not sure whether it means the same at the cave.

Overview of Ha Long Bay, upon exiting the cave.

The pedestrian bridge, connecting the cave exits and the pier.

The trip to Thien Cung cave was the last in our itinerary, and before long we were on our journey back to the mainland.

 Me, enjoying the sea breeze and the view at the front deck. 

End of Day 2.

27 Oct 2011.

I was undecided at first whether to go to Tam Coc or Ha Long, and after some careful consideration (despite the recent Feb 2011 tragedy) we opted the latter. So on the second day of our trip, we joined a few others to the Gulf of Tonkin.

Located 165km from Hanoi, the distance to Ha Long Bay is not that far. But due to the poor road condition and the fact that our driver was driving at a constant speed of 50km per hour, it took us three and half hours to reach the place.

But the long journey wasn’t  feel too bad as we were served with beautiful scenary of hanoi suburbs along the way, bypassing yellowish green paddy fields, with the cows munching the grass and farmers in the typical conical hats.

 Bicycles seem to be dominating the rurals.

We noticed that most houses in Hanoi are all awkwardly thin and tall, some were even free standing in the middle of paddy fields. I was told that land acquisition in Hanoi is quite expensive, thus explains the wierd architecture. Thank god that Hanoi is out of typhoon-hit area, otherwise I wonder how they withstand the blast.

Along the way we bypassed a group of school kids, just released from the morning session.

Somewhere in the middle of the journey the driver made a detour, for the usual ‘tourist stop’.

Most of the selling items are handmade, and painstakingly crafted.

Being a tourist trap, the price here costs a bomb. The same items could be bought halves of the price back at Hanoi (with some haggling, of course!).

Leaving the handycraft center, we finally reached the harbour around noon. The place was already flocked with tourists,

and countless anchored junks.

Our boat, the Minh Hang 19. A bit small compared to the others, for day tripping.

After getting the tickets and some formal registration (a new policy imposed by the government subsequent to the recent incident), we were ushered into the junk by our travel guide, and soon leaving the harbour.

DH inside the boat. The set-up was more of a floating restaurant. In the red bag was our pre-packed lunch, just in case.

Two locals were seen on the tip of the shoreline, I wonder what they were doing. Fishing, perhaps?

Minutes later we were already out in the open sea, with glimpse of karst isles ahead of us.

Ha Long Bay, finally. Literal translation means “The Descending Dragon”, the place is full of limestone karst formations jutting out from sea. The scenic seascape has been acknowledged as one of the World Heritage Site by UNESCO, and Nature’s New Seven Wonders of the World.  But the most publicity it gets is from 1997 James Bond movie, being one of the filming location.

 This view reminds me of one scene in LOTR.

We arrived at a small water village in the middle of the sea surrounded by the karst islands, where we stopped for lunch and a tour or kayaking around the grottoes.

A lady selling fruits on boat. Apart from fishing, tourism is also one of the villagers source of income. But I wonder whether she’s getting much out of it since it seemed nobody was buying. That explained the frown on the face. The fruits were not cheap either, as they were transported from the mainland.

You could also buy the fresh sea creatures, to be cooked for lunch. Since most of us were on tight budget, we had to skipped this part.

Back to our boat, we settled over our simple vegetarian meal, part of the package.

But previously we had a quick visit to the galley to check out the ingredients and the food preparation, just to ensure that they were not using non-halal stuffs, and confirmed later with our travel guide that the boat only caters for vegetarians.

Lunch over, we went up to the upper deck and enjoyed the spectacular view.

I spotted these kids paddling the woven-basket kind of raft, with the boat house on their back.

A boy and three girls. I wonder what’s the topic about.

But this one seemed to be doing his paddling alone. A brave guy, he is. Living on the water, the sea is just like a playground to him.

We went down again to the pontoons and were offered the rafting trip to explore the grottoes by the villagers at USD5 per pax. A bit expensive but we wouldn’t want to miss it out just because a few dollars (it won’t make us rich, anyway!)

The peddler took us underneath the arches, a formation highly subject to million years of erosion and natural phenomenon.

Hidden away was a secluded lagoon, totally invisible from the outside. Beautiful indeed.

An abandon raft inside the lagoon.

>> To be continued…