March 23, 2023
It’s Ha Long Bay day!! This was one of the first things I booked when planning this trip. Ha Long Bay is a UNESCO heritage site in northern Vietnam with limestone cliffs and blue green waters. We were going on a 2 night cruise through the bay full of exploration.
We started getting picked up around 8:30 for the three hour bus drive to the port. We loaded onto a big bus full of girls from the Netherlands and boys from Uruguay, clearly only being the only twosome aboard our bus. Ellie and I had to separate seats during the bus since we were the last ones on and everything was loaded up. I plopped down next to a clearly hungover girl who didn’t speak and Ellie was living her best life speaking Spanish to all the boys from Uruguay. Ellie is like my secret weapon, her social butterflyness and ability to speak Spanish had them all eating out of the palm of her hand. She chatted with them and shared Mate while I passed out and took a lil bus ride nap. The vast difference of traveling for 3 days so far compared to me at 3 weeks in. About half way through the bus drive we stopped to use the loo and buy some snacks for the boat before continuing out track onwards.
We finally arrived to the port where we loaded onto two smaller boats to get taken to our cruise ship. The cruise we were on has about 30 rooms, and it was stunning. This trip is going to be incredible, the water, the cliffs, the accommodation, truly cannot wait. The boat crew serves us a gigantic lunch and we lucked out because some of the people at our table don’t eat fish show we got lots of extra tastys. Up after this, we got to go kayaking in the bay to see some of the most incredible sites I’ve ever been able to experience. Then we got to an island called titop where we did a short 30 minute hike to the top to see more pretty things. I just cant explain how insane this place is. IT is like walking into a movie set.
Everyone takes a little swim and we load back on the mini boats to head back to the cruise. We spend the next few hours chilling in the Jacuzzis, drinking cocktails, eating a shit ton of food, and dancing on the boat. Apparently only about 20 of the 75 people on the boat will continue on for night two. So our little group is going to become much smaller and more rowdy. Apologies for the late posts, we had 0 Wi-Fi on the boat so we were vibing and I’m adding these as soon as I can.
