Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Halong Bay, Vietnam

After flying from Hue to Hanoi; I met two people from Mexico City, Alejandro and Coral, on the shuttle from the airport. We immediately became good friends, and they invited me to joing them on a tour that they were doing to Halong Bay. We met up with two girls from Argentina, friends of Alejandro and Coral, and together the five of us left on a tour of the famous and beautiful Halong Bay.


From the right: Coral, Alejandro, Vicki and her sister Clara. The five of us got along really well, and it was great to be able to speak Spanish with them, as it has been awhile since I've spoken Spanish for days on end.In Halong Bay people live on these floating houses. Women would approach our bigger boat in little row boats, selling food and beverages among other things.


This was our boat, and I'm not sure what the name means. There were about 20 people in our tour group, but not everyone slept on the boat. About sixteen of us slept on the boat, and I shared a room with a girl named Pooja from India. Pooja and I get along really well, so we decided to share a room in Hanoi when we returned from Halong Bay. Pooja is a lawyer in Bombay, India.


In the late afternoon as the sun was setting, we sat on the top of the boat, floating between these amazing rock formations that seemed to have grown out of the ocean. We drank some beer and stopped briefly to kayak, which was really fun! It was a great tour; I've returned to Hanoi and I will leave on a flight this evening for Kuala Lumpur, then Manil, then Hong Kong and back to Korea.

No comments: