A tour of Unesco Heritage Sites in Vietnam - 3. Halong Bay

Another well known Unesco heritage and Tourist site is Halong Bay, situated about 100km from Hanoi. I joined one of the 100's of boats that head out for 1/2/3 day trips with first night spent on the boat and the second night on Cat Ba island.
Courtesy of Wikipedia, I have included some context for those who have not visited this site (and I couldn't recall everything the guide said, that is also what happens when you are 3 weeks behind on writing your blog!!!

"Local legend has it that long ago, when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth and decided to live here then. The place where Mother Dragon flew down was named Ha Long, the place where the dragon children attended upon their mother was called Bai Ta Long island.....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.....there are two bigger islands, Tuan Chau and Cat Ba, that have permanent inhabitants.....tere is a community of around 1600 people live on Ha Long Bay in four fishing villages: They live on floating houses and are sustained by capture fishing and marine aquaculture (cultivating marine biota)."

We were not blessed with great weather, it was raining on the drive to Halong city and remained overcast for most of the 3 days. Despite this we were still in awe of the beauty and wonder of the 1000's of islands of varying shapes, sizes and shades of green from the favourite viewpoint, the deck on our junk. Quite comfortable boat accommodating about 14 passengers and 6 crew, in need of a little TLC but I guess being the end of high season, that could be expected. We visited phenomenal limestone caves, they were enormous and amazing formations created millions of years ago. A leisurely 2 hour kayak amongs the islands afforded a different perspective and we were entertained by a few fish eagle soaring above us and betweenthe islands, they were more mesmerising than the islands. I had been warned that there would be many boats and that there is a fare amount of litter, but this did not deter from the experience and on the whole a lot of clean up activity is done in the more visited areas. (there were a few inlets that the garbage boats clearly hadn't visited). A wonderful setting to view the sunset, stars and full moon, but alas the clouds did not clear. I awoke at sunrise to witness another beautiful time of day, still overcast, but very peaceful and still majestic.

We motored over to Cat Ba island where a handful of us hopped off, cycled to the Hospital cave - amazing hospital built during (2nd World?) war by Chinese and Vietnamese within a cave...phenominal solid structure. Settled into rather large (tour group style but comfortable) hotel serving very good lunch. I took a walk along the promenade past floating villages, smar resorts and then followed a sea side path built into the cliffs with fruther great views of the islands. A rather disappointing trip to Monkey island - a little bit of a tourist delight, a chance to get close to rabid monkeys, that only appear when a kind tourist brings out some food. A few intrepid travellers had followed a rocky steep path to seek out the monkeys in their natural habitat, only to be awarded wtih magnificent views, and on our return to the beach discovered where all the monkeys were! Cat Ba island has some fantastic trekking opportunities, into the National Park, but we headed off early to get back on the junk for a leisurely ride bact to shore, passing the famous kissing chickens....not that impressive... but included here anyway!