Vung Vieng Fishing Village at Ha Long Bay

Second day on the junk. We woke up as early as 5:30 am, intended to catch the sunrise. The heavy fog disappointed us.  But, we didn't lose much, as we earned the layering view of islets created by blurring fog. The scenery was beyond description. The humming of diesel engine followed a few minutes later. 

Again we continued our journey through the gaps between ancient limestone karsts. We had only one place left in our itinerary- Vung Vieng Fishing Village. Sitting quietly on the deck, we snapped the beauty of nature, while enjoying the cold breeze in Ha Long Bay.

 Junk with picturesque lanscape as background.

 Fishing boat disturbed the tranquility of the reflection.

 Vegetation grow on one of the islets.

 Some areas in Ha Long Bay have high density of islets.

 Feel like in Paradise.

The small boat had shifted through a thousand hills (轻舟已过万重山) is best depicted by this photo.

 This is what we saw from the upper deck.

 Other Indochina Junks were gathering and moving forward to Vung Vieng.

 One of the fishermen that we encountered.

We reached Vung Vieng after our breakfast. The fishing village was built under government's initiative. The village has developed from a simple anchorage in early 19 century to more than 70 households now. The villagers moving around by boat, if they decided not to swim.

 

 We visited the small scale fish cultivation industry.

Then we visited the school of Vung Vieng. Tony was our teacher. He taught us a few Vietnamese words- e.g. "cam on" means thank you.

After visiting the fishing village, we were brought to witness the greatness of God's creation around the village on a bamboo made boat. We used the small boat to move around Vung Vieng.

Beautiful natural arch near the village.

 We went through a narrow passage to go back to our junk.

We couldn't hold ourselves turning our head around, tried to catch all the great scenery around us.

The rower was very helpful. She helped us to take several nice photos.

At the end of our trip, we were arranged to visit the pearl farm just beside the village. For us, the farm was small. A demonstration was done to show us how to insert the nucleus into the oyster (lower left). Pearl products were displayed at the souvenir shop near the exit. The prices for the items displayed  were quite high (similar to what we can get from Sabah). We stayed at Vung Vieng for about 2 hours.

We took our lunch on our way back to Ha Long City. This is our group photo with our tour guide Tony (white shirt at the middle), taken before we left the junk. He was helpful, friendly, and very good in kayaking.

We reached Ha Long City at 12:30 pm. Then, another 4 hours of journey back to Hanoi. Exhausted, but worthy. If you have the chance to visit Hanoi, we would recommend that you spare a day or two to visit Ha Long Bay as well. Ha Long Bay is truly a place that we should visit at least once in a lifetime. Spending a night on the junk is expensive, but worth it. 

Indochina junk has provided very good service to us. We had been given free drinking water, coffee, and tea, delicious food with non-repeating dishes for every meal, plus, caving, kayaking, and taking boat trip around Vung Vieng without extra charge. If we wish to list one thing in lack, then, it should be a free pearl necklace as souvenir, haha!

[Amazing Ha Long Bay Cruise Experience]

[Exploring Hanoi Old Quarter] [Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum and Places Nearby]
[Food in Hanoi] [Getting Around Hanoi]
[HanoiKids, the Ambassador of Hanoi] 

[All our Destinations]