Nature at its best..

It took me a long time to write this blog because I was amazed by what I saw..  If you are not a nature lover, you'll see Ha Long Bay as a group of cliffs scattered in the sea..  But i was silenced by its beauty.. all you can to do is stare at it, try to capture the perfect view with your camera.. But the real thing is so much better compared to my pictures..

There are plenty of travel agencies in Hanoi catering to different tours.  Before going there, we were informed to watch out for several "fake tours", you pay so much and not end up getting what you paid for.  We choose APT travel and to our delight, it was a real agency, though they picked us up late from our hostel, that was pretty much my complain. 

Left the hostel around 830 in the morning, and when i went to my seat inside the van, was suprised to hear a very familiar language - hiligaynon! (hiligaynon is one of the plenty of dialects spoken in the Philippines, and from where I came from, that is our "dialect").    Among 13 people who will be staying in the junk boat, we meet 2 girls who came from the same province as me as my friend.  Ha Long Bay is not a common destination, usually Filipinos would prefer going to Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) because there is a direct flight from Manila.  It's a small world after all =D

It was a long ride to Ha Long City, I was able to catch some snooze..(I have this talent, I can basically sleep anywhere =D)  When we reached the port, I was amazed to see really plenty of Junk boats.. all waiting for tourist to experience Ha Long Bay.

No "kargador" to pay (Kargador-local term of someone you are paying to carry your things; in short porter), I carried my backpack and other things to the junkboat.. It was quite a long walk, I was so tired when I arrived at the boat and sooo hungry (since we left late, we arrived at the port around 1pm). . We were told that lunch will be served as soon as formalities were done.  We gave our passports to the captain of the junkboat, drank our welcome drinks. Refreshed with cold towels..  And lunch was worth the wait, yum.yum..yum.. perfect because everybody is soo hungry.

After lunch we introduced ourselves.. There are 13 tourists on board - 2 Australians, 2 Germans, 2 Malaysians, 2 newly wed Vietnamese, 1 Taiwanese and 4 Filipinos =D Our tour guide was very pleasant, made the trip much more interesting.  After introductions, we decided to enjoy the sun, went up the roof deck, enjoying silence and the mystic of the Bay .. Few hours later, we reached the cave, said to be one of the biggest cave in Vietnam.. Those who enjoyed hiking went inside, there is a terrace where you can view the bay, a perfect "view from the top".

After  hiking, those who wanted to kayak went down the boat, there is a kayak station in the middle of the bay =D  Pretending to be brave we decided to try it.  We are given an hour and a half to enjoying the sport, while the rest went to the nearby island to go swimming..  This is my second time to kayak, the first one was difficult, the second one isn't easier either. LOL... After i don't know how many minutes, we reached the island where our boat was docked, we were tired!  We are supposed to bring the kayak back to the kayak station, that is like 2km from we currently are..  No more energy and overwhelmed by the days' activity, we searched for our tour guide and asked her if it is possible to tie the kayak in the boat =D  They were laughing, including the captain as if expecting that we will be asking it.

After the tiring day, we had a hearty dinner, went up the roof to enjoy the silence of the night.  Beautiful bay, the lights of the different junk boats reflecting in the water.  Since most junk boats ar near each other, you can transfer from one boat, if you wanna join their party =D