Ha Long Bay or the legend of the descending dragon - there are many different versions of the legend how Ha Long Bay was formed. So I’m going to tell the one I like best:
According to a legend centuries ago, gods sent a dragon mother and her children to protect the local fishermen. Once upon a time pirates attacked the bay and it’s residents. The celestial dragon mother and her children spitted fire balls against the invaders. These fire balls fell down and turned into the islands. Of course the dragons won the battle and they decided to live in the bay. The mother dragon descended on the place now named Ha Long, while the children settled in Bai Tu Long.
Nowadays the Ha Long Bay is part of the UNESCO world heritage and we have other explanations for the islands. Surface water drained through the poriferous lime stone and hollows were formed. The advancing karst formation made the karst caves’ roofs collapse. Between the karst cones star-shaped sinkholes were built. The forces of erosion made the sinkholes deeper and broader so finally the karst towers have been generated.
For us an absolute must see before leaving Vietnam. That’s why we decided to book a three-days-two-nights trip. Since Ste made an internet research and figured out that the Ha Long Bay is just crowded of tourist boats we agreed to spend a little more money to make a trip to the eastern part of Ha Long Bay named Bai Tu Long. Only very few boats have the permission to provide tourist trips there.
Early in the Saturday’s morning we got picked up by a minivan from the Indochina Junk company in old town to transfer to Ha Long City. Everything was perfectly organized. After a short stop at a very expensive art selling station for tourists we arrived in Yen Duc for lunch and a traditional water puppet show. It was quite impressive how the actors behind the curtain moved their puppets through the water. And the food… Let describe the food situation for the whole three days in five words: Delicious, but far too much.
At about two pm we embarked. I don’t want to go too much into details - we would like to let the pictures tell the story. So I’m going to make it short. We got the chance to make kayak trips, had a BBQ on a beach, went swimming, visited one of the caves and different fishermen villages as well as a pearl farm. Between the fix items of the program we had time to enjoy the beautiful view. We’ve shared the Junk with 17 other guests and 10 crew members. We spent a great time with guests from France, England, Scotland and Germany. We just want to say thank you all for sharing time, pictures, beers and meals. We wish you save travels and a great time for the rest of your holidays.
Back to Hanoi we had some steam dumplings - both of us weren’t very hungry and returned to our AirBnB stay in Westlake looking forward to have a self brewed coffee. Again our host changed our plans. Entering the house there was a huge hole in the middle of the kitchen. They’re changing the water pipes for some reason. They could have done this two days later when the house will be empty again. We also realized that someone was in our room to install a new W-LAN hot spot. There was wiring waste everywhere on the floor. And one of our beers is missing too. We’re definitely not going to recommend our host! First we discussed if we should look after an other accommodation but since we have to leave in two days anyway we decided to stay.
Though our “homestay” completely f***ed up we’re in good mood looking back on the last three days.
