Vietnam - Halong Bay Cruise

We finished off our time in Vietnam by taking a cruise on Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Heritage Sight, protected for its natural or historical value.  Halong Bay is east of Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam, in the northern part of Vietnam, just south of China.  We did a Monkey Island Resort Cruise which means that the Monkey Island Resort where our destination was, organized the cruise. But before you think of this cruise and equate it with the North American variety, it was very different than that.  It was more like "cruising" on an old white pirate ship; that is what it felt like to me. The boat used to look even more like a pirate ship when it was painted brown but the government dictated that all the "cruise" ships had to be painted white.

It was spectacular scenery; it reminded me of the scenery when we truly cruised to Alaska, 5 years ago. The food was very good and plentiful, some different kinds of Asian dishes that we had not tried before.  We were able to do some kayaking around a floating village in Halong Bay. We had a tour of Thien Duong Cave.  We also did some swimming in Halong Bay which included jumping off the second storey of the boat into the water, which is about as reminiscent as you can get of the old days of 'walking the plank'. We spent the first night on the boat (sharing our cabins with some cockroaches). The next day we arrived at Monkey Island Resort and did some swimming and kayaking, even in the pouring but warm rain. We spent one night at Monkey Island Resort. In the morning we headed back to the dock where we boarded our boat on our way back to Hanoi.

Scenery in Halong Bay

More scenery in Halong Bay

What our boat looked like

Floating village in Halong Bay

Hannah and Aimee kayaking around the floating village

Vietnamese girl swam up to our kayak

Monkey Island Resort

View from the beach at Monkey Island Resort

We spent one more night in Hanoi. Went to KFC for supper which was one of only a few Western restaurant franchises we could see in the whole city. Even I (Eileen) was happy to see KFC whereas usually I would not darken the door of that restaurant especially.  (In fact, the whole country had little recognizable Western influences like restaurants, and believe me, we looked for some home "comfort" food.  See Hannah's blog 'Getting Sick in a Foreign Country' for more reasons why.)  The next morning we flew back to Penang via Kuala Lumpur with Air Asia.