March 25 Ha Long Bay

The weather had been foul during our run from HCMC to Ha Long Bay -- cloudy, rainy and windy enough to cause some ship motion, added to by some southeastern swells.  We were delayed by about an hour because of this, but the weather cleared as we approached the bay, the seas flattened and this is what we saw.  It was hazy, but Photoshop helps with that.

I could have included another 20 pictures.  The soda straw connection to the satellite internet won't support that, so you'll just have to go and see it yourself.

Instead of taking the three hour drive to Hanoi this afternoon, we chose the bay cruise with an overnight on a junk.  After a very different tendering process (local companies tied up a large raft to the tender dock on the ship, then nosed in about six tenders that loaded very quickly, although helped by calm seas) we motored over to the junk.

 The upper sun deck of the junk.  For me the Vietnam flag was always disconcerting since it had been such a symbol, both positive and negative, during my college years.  As much as anything it was the symbol of the war.

 We drove through some of the limestone karsts to arrive at one of the larger ones, the site of the Heavenly Cave.

The cave was large, the shafts of light from several natural openings made it heavenly.  It was illuminated with colored artificial light that looked better than it photographed. 

 Emerging from the cave, the horseshoe shaped island is in view.

 We cruised to our parking spot for the night through a forest of the mountains.  It finally got too dark to take any more photos.

We had a great dinner.  The bedroom and particularly the bathroom were spacious.  Unfortunately we had to be up by 5am for the next day.  Which will be the next post.