Today’s trip and overnight on Halong Bay was “weather permitting.” An auspicious little weather forecast sign at the Hanoi Hotel front desk… sunny today and tomorrow,,,View image… The group brought all the luggage down to leave behind at the hotel since we just needed clothes for one night on the Halong cruise. When the storage room gets full, the hotel just chains the bags together…View image… An early morning start (what else is new…) for the 3-4 hour ride to Bai Chay (Halong City West) where we’d board the boat.

Congestion and rush hour in and out of Hanoi with today’s big road sight, the Long Bien Bridge across the Red River built in 1903 by Gustave Eiffel. This bridge was heavily bombarded during the Vietnam War, and only half the bridge retains its original shape. Today used only for pedestrian and railway traffic. On the other side of the Red River, the industrialized section of Hanoi began with huge factories including a gigantic Canon facility, people selling good-looking French baguettes along the road…

Long Bien Bridge across the Red River in Vietnam 

French baguettes for sale along the road in Vietnam
…pottery villages…View image….and a stop at a huge fine arts shop…View image… set up and run on behalf of Agent Orange Children. The young girls doing the embroidery pictures are chosen from families in villages that suffered from Agent Orange to work here. This mini-mall was filled with every conceivable craft – lacquerware, clothing, toys, jewelry, food, snake wine – and also served as a pee stop for every single tourist bus coming and going along the highway.

embroidering intricate pictures in Vietnam
Pulling up to Bai Chay at 12:00 noon sharp, there were hundreds and hundreds of tourists buying tour tickets, waiting for their boat, getting off boats, in what appeared to be a mass of confusion. Halong Bay is the number one tourist attraction in Vietnam. If I hadn’t known that before, it was evident now. The captain of our private junk (Anh Duong)….View image… docked, he took group’s passport to register with the Authorities, returned and we finally boarded the Anh Duong and headed out into the Halong Bay.

I think there were around eight very nice cabins on this junk. Settled in and were served a seafood lunch while the cruise passed by many rocks and islets, named by their shape. “Dog”…”Incense Burner”…”Fighting Cock”…”Kissing Rock”…etc. You absolutely wouldn’t believe the amount of junks in the water today. As far as the eye could see, they followed the exact same route like little ducks following their mother. Our guide said there were probably 200 boats out with us today!

junks in Halong Bay ——— Incense Burner Rocks – Vietnam
Stops were made at a cave and fishing village…View image…..with so many boats lined up at the cave, some people were actually tendered in….View image…while others stepped their way from boat to boat until reaching shore

Halong Bay cave —— shuttling people to shore