Vacation in Vietnam-Halong Bay

On our second day in Vietnam we traversed over 3 hours of Northern Vietnam to meet up with our junk for a 2 day cruise through Halong Bay. Since we have arrived in Vietnam the weather has been misty, foggy and cool. Cruising along the Halong Bay was no different, it remained foggy our entire trip but it was still amazing. When we booked a cruise on a junk I had visions of us roughing it, this wasn't the case at all. Our junk was a luxury boat with 11 rooms, a beautiful dining room and several observation decks. Their slogo cracks me up, "The luxury you deserve." That saying just always convicts me, because I know that I deserve nothing and all the luxuries we enjoy in this life are by God's mercy.

We spent the two days either cruising the bay of Halong or anchored for trips out on a tender to see the fishing villages spread out among the bay. One village we visited is entirely on boats anchored in the water. Many of the boathouses had small children and dogs on their small decks. The government provides a school on water for the children. They have electricity by generator and all seemed to have TV's so not totally cut off from civilization. They take advantage of the passing cruise ships and small tenders entering their villages, many approached us wanting to sell a snack or beautiful shell. Mark and I also kayaked along the bay for a closer view of things, it's really something how these huge rock formations jut straight out of the water. Our captain told us the water we cruised through is only 5-10 meters deep. The bay opens into the Sea of China.

I'll also put a picture in the slide show of one of the large caves we toured through. We really enjoyed this part of our vacation.