Fantastic Beauty Halong Bay in Vietnam

Have you heard about Halong Bay? My friends and I have decided to visit it since November 2008, we've booked the flight on that month for flying on July 2009. There were 6 of us, we found difficulty to find Dong (currency in Vietnam) in Indonesia. Money changer seldom provides it, so only in black market Dong is available. The rate is not good either, Rupiah were valued less than Dong. My friend who works in Vietnam suggested us to bring USD and change it in Vietnam with much better rate, and she is right. In the airport we could get a good rate around 17500 Dong for 1 USD, even in the city you will get much better rate, around 18000 Dong for 1 USD.


Because we were blind of Vietnam environment and language, so we booked the tour from internet since we were in Indonesia. A nice van picked us up in Noi Bai - Hanoi airport, directly going to Halong Bay, it takes around 2.5 hours from Hanoi to Halong Bay. The driver could not speak English, so we should use symbolic language to talk. My friend gave a nick name for him "Mas Tek". Mas is Javanese language for Mr. He didn't mind we call him with the nickname. During the journey to HalongBay, my friend kept trying to communicate with him, unfortunately no luck, the communication barrier was still high :-) It's ok as long as we would arrive safely to the destination.

We arrived on the pier during lunch time, the scenery was amazing. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes decorating with beautiful modern traditional ships. With a small boat we crossed the sea to our magnificent lovely "Victory Star" ship. We were welcomed by the crew with a wet towel to refresh up. On the second floor, the key was submitted to us, the luggage were taken care by the crew. Entering the bedroom surprised us, the room was very nice, with air conditioning (AC), shower, toilet and wastafel, and you could look through the window for the magnificent scenery of Halongbay. There was a balcony outside your room with 2 rattan chairs and a table.

Hạ Long Bay (literally: Descending Dragon bay; Vietnamese: Vịnh Hạ Long) is a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam. The bay features thousands of limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes. We stayed a night on the boat, so we could enjoy the morning on the sea surrounding by beautiful rocks. The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean

Floating fishing village was one of our journey visit, we went there by the real traditional boat rowed by a real Vietnamnese fisherman wearing the traditional costume, all of us as passengers were lent the ethnic cap for avoiding the sun shine, it's very hot. When we tried to row the boat, it's very heavy, we could not move forward, it moved backword or even went round and round at the same place until we gave up :-) My friend's mom was quite excited, she could row well quite a long time, of course she gots sweatening. There were hospital and school in the floating village. They made a living by maintaining pearl and fishes. We stopped by at the school, trying to feed the fish.

After visiting the village, we stopped by at a pier in the middle of the sea. The passengers were divided into 2 groups, I was in the different group with my friends. We were racing on the dragon boat rowing accompanying by the cheerful sound from the drum hit by a person at the head of the boat. The rower sat on 2 rows at the left and right side, all of us were very enthusiastic to win the race, luckily my team was the winner, what a lovely experience.

We returned to the ship for taking a bath, some of the passengers were swimming. The activity was continued with a cooking class, then we could take a leisure by enjoying the lovely sea view on the deck, chatting with others. Not a long time after a complete seafood dinner set which was served by the ship crews with colorful Vietnam traditional costumes, we tried to fish the squid, it's quite difficult. Only 3 kids tried to fishing, a large light was spotted to the water to attract the squid, unfortunately after an hour, they only got a squid. FYI in the ship, you could order various wine, meal was included in the tour but for drink including water you have to pay separately by yourselves. Anyway the ship was very nice and luxurious, you won't regret to have journey with it. Wanna make a try?

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