2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip
Day 42/105 - Ha Long Bay, Vietnam - Cruising the bay, climbing the stairs
Today is our second day in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. It's only a half-day as we plan to sail at 1 p.m. for Hue and the port of Chan May, Vietnam, and then continue on to Ho Chi Minh City.
Our tour today was the included tour, Ha Long Bay by Junk. Typically, a Junk is a type of sailboat originally from China. We were surprised when we saw our tour boat this morning as it resembled a two-level pontoon more that what we would consider a Junk. Oh well, it did the job.
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| Viking Orion |
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| A Junk |
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| A Junk and Orion |
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| Bai Chay Lighthouse |
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| Vinpearl Resort & Spa Hạ Long |
We headed to Dau Go Island, home to an impressive natural grotto, Động Thiên Cung.
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| The grotto's name means Heavenly Place |
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| It was around a 100-step climb to reach the entry to the cave |
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| Fossilized markings near the entry |
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| They determined that this is a dragon and added an eye for emphasis |
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| Romeo and Juliette |
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| We eventually made our way out on the other side of the island, where our boat was waiting |
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| On the way down, we saw today's interesting flavor chips at a gift shop - Korean kimchi stick chips |
We sailed away for some scenic ctuising around a few of the 1,969 90% limestone islands that reside in Ha Long Bay.
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| This area was selected as a UNESCO World Heritage site |
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| Our guide called thie The Dog |
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| Hòn Đỉnh Hương |
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| If you look closely, you can just make out our Orion in the middle |
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| Our guide said these two were fighting cocks (roosters), but the internet firmly believes they are more properly known as kissing chickens |
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| A cable car glides above and behind Orion |
We arrived back in port and waited to catch a tour bus back to the ship. Things were crowded and messy so we walked back instead. This wasn’t planned out well as almost all passengers
returned nearly simultaneously to get back on the ship.
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| I don't think we'll make the noon boarding time |
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| Buses kept dropping off more and more passengers - they won't make it either |
We decided to wait for nearly an hour to let the World Café settle a bit since the entire ship got back on essentially at lunch time. That plan backfired as there were zero seats left in the Word Café when we arrived. We then discovered that the sit-down venue, The Restaurant, was closed for lunch today. Not great planning, Viking, trying to run over 900 guests through the World Café all at once.
I've posted many photos of the islands, so I didn't take more, but here are a few shots of the cable car that was running as we sailed away.
The sail out was lovely. Some of the islands are so close to the chanel that it almost feels like you can reach out and touch them. We chatted with friends in the Explorers' Bar at the front of the ship, watching the sights through the panoramic windows.
We watched the port talk for tomorrow's port, Hue (Chan May), Vietnam. It is unfortunate how Viking handles this. The port talk is where the excursion manager goes over each excursion in detail. This includes drive times, excursion level, amount of walking, number of stairs, and so on. This could lead to people changing their mind about their booked excursions and wanting to change. The issues is that the deadline to cancel and rebook is 6 p.m. the day before the port talk. It sure seems like doing the port talks two days ahead of excursions would make more sense and allow folks time to change excursions once they get all the details. But that’s just me, I guess.
We hit up the Explorers's Bar and met a nice couple from Dallas. At dinner, we chatted with another couple from Boston, but originally from Russia. As I’ve said before, that’s what we love about cruising - you get to meet people from all over and everyone is interesting in their own way.
We tried our hand at Name That Tune trivia tonight in the Explorers’ Bar. We netted 21/30 (15 questions, title and artist each worth one point) – a respectable performance for the two of us, but not enough for the win. I’m still mad at myself for coming up with Beer Barrel Polka, but not Frankie Yankovic – America’s Polka king! Dang!
We have an 8:45 a.m. excursion tomorrow to Da Nang and My Khe (China) Beach so we’re hitting the hay a little early tonight. More Vietnam adventures tomorrow.
The port talk is our biggest gripe too. Why bother reviewing the excursions if you can’t change or book them? Evidently Viking does not think we will remember anything if it is discussed more than 24 hours in advance.
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