Halong Bay, part two.

Day 2 adrift at sea, no food or water, without land in sight...

Okay, enough of playacting! Especially since we haven't moved at all from our ship parking lot in the bay... I got up early to catch the sunrise, but alas, the entire bay was covered with clouds and fog and I could not even see the sun. 

Breakfast was supposed to be western style. I failed to identify the salt and pepper on the table, so my eggs tasted terrible. The toast was probably the worst toast that I have ever put in my mouth... I instantly regretted even trying to eat it. The sausage was Vietnamese sausage! It has a distinct flavor and texture that I always fail to identify what exactly it is made out of, which I think I probably do not want to know. 

After breakfast, we visited a cave. So these are limestone caves. I have seen a number of them, and this one does not particular stand out, though I still made an attempt at photography. 

Pardon the stop sign, I have no software to remove it at this time... Given that I was shooting at 1 sec speeds and forgot my tripod, the entire cave trip was me contortion-ing myself into various positions to stabilize against rocks... I am sure I provided plenty of amusement for the Taiwanese and French tourists behind us. And of course I completely missed our tour guide, who was just boringly pointing out various rocks that can be imagined into creatures. I can play that game by myself, thank you. 

There was something very amusing about this collection of penguin trash cans...

And of course, lots of climbing has to be involved. At the entrance, there always is the sign that says "the elderly, people with hypertensive heart disease should not enter"... What is the hate on diastolic heart failure? I feel like smokers, especially COPDers, should be part of that warning as well. 

So after the slightly boring cave visit, that was apparently the conclusion of our $129 cruise around Halong Bay. We were ushered onto shore to have lung and driven back to Hanoi. 

Goodbye, beautiful Halong Bay! You disappointed me some but was still impressive!

So some conclusion thoughts about visiting Halong Bay. So number one is that one has to visit with a cruise boat. There are no other way to visit this area, but then you have to follow the plan set by the tour people rather than self explorations unless you shell out money for a private tour. Some of the activities, such as kayaking is really fun and worth it, but the other stuff like squid fishing and cooking class really is not. I am uncertain how to really get unique shots as it seems impossible to venture out on one's own... If I was to do this again, I think I would probably go with the cheapest cruise as long as they include hot water and kayaking (though this should be taken with a grain of salt when advertised by the hotel or company). 

This is a shot of me attempting to run onto the other cruise boat to prolong our trip... Don't I look like I am a dorobo? 

 (Image from google image search...)

I should totally photoshop that picture... Teehee~