July 25th, 2017
Halong Bay day 3/travel day
So glad we did the 2 night Halong Bay trip instead of the 1 night. One night would have just been way too fast. It’s not like we saw or did anything particularly amazing on the middle day, but it allowed for a more relaxed pace. It’s kind of a fuss to get to Halong Bay. It’s a 3.5 hour shuttle ride each way and of course checking I and out of a hotel/cruise ship or whatever for one might is always a pain. We had plenty of relaxation yesterday so we ready for today being busy morning plus what will undoubtably end up as long travel day.
After the news yesterday that a “storm was coming”, I was certainly on high alert for changes in the weather last night. While there was a strong current and/or maybe winds, I don’t think it was any worse than the night prior. Woke up at 5:20am to a beautiful sunrise. Colour and everything….way better than the day before’s sunrise that couldn’t be called anything due to clouds and rain. So we were to be at breakfast promptly at 7am as we needed to be ready for our cave trip at 7:45am. Tom (new guide-Kent went home with yesterday’s crew) told us that we would be leaving earlier than normal to shore because indeed the was concern about a storm. But we were still fine at the hour and would be carrying on as normal with the itinerary. Awesome….
The tender took us to the cave location and EVERY OTHER BOAT perhaps on the planet was there trying to dock to get their passengers into that cave. Yikes. And it was super windy. Some very loud claps of rolling thunder got our attention. Took us several minutes to park and even at that no one would love so we had to tie up to the back of another boat and use theirs to get to shore. They looked none too happy about it, but they also barged into a small spot in front of us when we were there first, so I guess you reap what you sow.
The cave was average and we had to wait in a long line to get in. Tom said there was about 500 people in the cave (based on how many boats he saw) so we should wait a minute or so to go up. Ok, good advice! He entertained us with some fun facts about Halong Bay while we waited. Once we got the go ahead, it took quite a while to get I bcz the line was very slow moving. The out was the same as the in, so this caused a fair amount of congestion on some very sketchy stairs. Regardless we did make our way up and in. We have really seen some spectacular caves in Thailand, so we are not easily impressed. And there were just so many people, it was challenging to enjoy the true splendor of the cave with all the pushy Chinese and French people…..common courtesy literally escapes them obviously. It was an average outing, like I said mostly because we have been able to enjoy caves with far fewer tourists and fuss. Back to th transfer boat that returned us to Starlight by 9am. We no sooner get our feet on board and the onslaught of rain starts. Complete downpour. Man that timing could not have been better. 30 more notes to pack up and turn in our Key, then we get to lounge about while they prepare brunch. The streak,back has already started and it was the great cruise ship movement. All you can see in front and behind was cruise ships heading back to port.
Lunch was spectacular (again) so much delicious food. It was my first time having ostrich. Such a large plate of food, but I couldn’t bear to think an ostrich had been killed in vain, so I did my best to finish it. Another 7 course meal done, we were stuffed but not so full we couldn’t eat the sliver of mango custard cake they brought us at the end. 😉
Pulled up to port and they shuffled us to shore. A very short wait at the depot and we were getting on our shuttle van with Tom. There were 2 additional people joining and Tom introduced them. One was another guide and the over was a cruise bartender. The government has shut down all Halong Bay cruises (the are ~500 cruise ships) for tomorrow due to the weather concerns. So they are shuttling all the staff back to Hanoi for a day off. Yikes…..we got lucky didn’t we?? Now we just need our flight to Da Nang to get off the ground before the storm hits…..I’d hate to have to spend the night (or even extra hours) in the Hanoi airport unnecessarily.
The shuttle ride was uneventful, the taxi met us at the predetermined ” intersection” to grab us from the shuttle that goes into Hanoi and take the other road to the airport. Pretty slick system they have set up. And as always, it always works out. I’m now sitting here at the airport blogging, we were 5 hours early for our flight. But that’s just how it works out sometimes. We asked about changing to earlier flight and for 800,000 dong EACH they would put us on a 5pm flight. And given that the tickets only cost 660,000 dong to start with, we passed.
11:34pm-arrives safe and sound in De Nang. It’s very late and it’s been a very long day. Off to bed-exploring tomorrow!
