Showing posts with label Ha Long Bay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ha Long Bay. Show all posts

Thursday, May 9, 2013

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!




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Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Amazing Ha Long Bay Cruise Experience

Ha Long Bay (Halong Bay) is truly a nature wonder. The name Ha Long 下龙 revealed the legend that the place was once the site where dragons descended. The breathtaking islets with vertical karst limestone walls are contrasted by the emerald green water below, calm and quiet. No wonder it is listed as one of the UNESCO Heritage Site. 

Ha Long Bay is four hours away from Hanoi by road (30 minutes of rest in between). Lucky, the road condition was not too bad. We were able to rest on our eleven-seater Ford Transit.

Our two-day-one-night tour was provided by Indochina Junk. Our itinerary- lunch on the junk while we cruised into the heart of Ha Long Bay, kayaking around the islet, exploring the cave at Thien Canh Son, swimming, and later dinner on board on the first day. Second day, we took our breakfast on our way to Vung Vieng fishing village, exploring the village and the pearl industry, and took lunch on our way back to the harbour. The fee, USD280 for two of us.

Why Indochina Junk? First, strong recommendation from Livien, which had pushed us to take the tour package with Indochina Junk. Then, overwhelming good reviews in Tripadvisor, and of course, the exclusive Bai Tu Long Bay tour. As far as we knew, there were only two cruise companies have been given the permission to enter Bai Tu Long Bay. We were lucky to enjoy more space and privacy in the middle of the world heritage. Worth it or not? For us, definitely a big yes.

We were introduced to our tour guide, Tony after we arrived at the Ha Long City. It was 1 pm. He led us to our junk with a glamorous name- Dragon's Pearl (made us think of Black Pearl in Pirates of the Caribbean). We would like to continue our sharing with our photos.

Entire "Ha Long" fleet can be seen from the waiting room at the harbour.Please click on this photo to see the bigger panoramic image.

Photo taken at the jetty, when we were waiting for the transit boat to our junk. It was hazy throughout our 2 days' tour. The haze limited our visibility but had enhanced the elements of adventure.

Junks undocked from the harbour and cruised into the sea dotted with limestone islets.

One of the sister ships of our junk. We shared the same journey throughout our trip.

The bedroom was decorated in traditional Chinese style with wooden wall and floor (upper left), outdoor and indoor dining area (upper and lower right), and a place for us to lay down and relax on the top level of the junk. The indoor dining area was completed with a bar.

Our photo on the upper deck of the junk.

We took 2 hours to reach Thien Canh Son. The islet is owned by Indochina Junk and received very limited visitors. Thien Canh means heavenly landscape. Our tour guide Tony described the place with a name that we couldn't agree more- Paradise Island.

 Beautiful scenery around the islet.

Photo taken from opposite site of our landing area, which could be accessed through Thien Canh Cave. The view from the high ground was amazing, even though some of the view was blocked by overgrown vegetation.

Cave exploration was something that we didn't expected. The cave was windy with cooling temperature during our visit. The ancient stalagtites and stalagmites revealed the age of the cave. This beautiful cave could be reached by climbing a few stairs- a price that we gladly paid.


 Our family photo at the entrance of the cave.

Yeah, we went Kayaking. That experience was larger than life. The limestone islets were so huge and magnificent when we moved closer to them. We should have brought our camera with us, but we didn't. We left it in the locker when we went kayaking.

After kayaking and caving, we spent some time to enjoy the beautiful beach. A swim in the cooling sea water was really refreshing.

Back to our junk, we enjoyed our sumptuous dinner with finely decorated dishes.

We couldn't see anything around us, except the dim illumination from the junks. However, when we pushed the ISO to H2, well, this is what our saw through our camera.

Night on the junk was quiet, with occational sound of singing and laughing from other travel mates. We slept early that night, with the hope to wake up early to see the sunrise. Follow us on the second day of our cruise tour at Ha Long Bay in our next post. 


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