ha long bay

We've been wanting to go here for a while but it always seemed to fall through. A couple weeks ago Rocky came home and said he was going to Hanoi on Friday and I immediately decided I was going with him. This was our last chance to go away before the baby comes (6 weeks from last Friday). I did have to visit the airport doctor to get permission to take the flight. Not the first time I've had to do that...

We booked a two day, one night cruise on Ha Long Bay. The drive from Hanoi is only about 100km but it took our bus a solid 4 hours thanks to fantastic road conditions. I was able to observe that everybody in Vietnam owns nicer cars than I ever have. Unfortunately, they only drive them at a maximum speed of 30mph.

Rocky prefers to travel dressed as a local. Which does not explain why we own a cowboy hat and/or canvas fisherman hat from every country in SE Asia.

 It was amazing.

 Ha Long Bay is an area of about 1500 sq km with about 2,000 limestone islets. It took over 500 million years to form. Or was created by a dragon.

A couple of years ago all the junk boats were painted white, apparently to insure no one ever got a picture as good as the postcards from 5 years ago.

 We visited a local floating village.

 This woman is harvesting pearls.

 They take 2 year old oysters, add a ball of plastic and a few years later pull them out again.

Then we drove the four hours back to Hanoi. We were able to break up the drive with a mandatory water puppet show. We both agreed we were glad we saw one, now we never feel the need to see another.