Our fifth port with the cruise was the absolutely amazing Hạ Long Bay Vietnam. I couldn't get enough of the scenary with these islets. There's so many pictures here that I'll break this up into two posts.
Wikipedia: The name Hạ Long means "descending dragon". It's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hạ Long Bay includes 1,969 islets, most of which are made of limestone. The core of the bay has an area of 334 km2 (129 sq mi) with a high density of 775 islets. The limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. The evolution of the karst in this bay has taken 20 million years under the impact of the tropical wet climate.
According to local legend reinforced by 1800s Nguyễn dynasty nationalism, when Vietnam had just started to develop into a country, they had to fight against invaders. To assist the Vietnamese in defending their country, the gods sent a family of dragons as protectors. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders.
Under magics, numerous rock mountains abruptly appeared on the sea, ahead of invaders' ships; the forward ships struck the rocks and each other. After winning the battle, the dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth, and then decided to live in this bay. The place where the mother dragon descended was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon's children attended upon their mother was called Bái Tử Long island (Bái: attend upon, Tử: children, Long: dragon), and the place where the dragon's children wriggled their tails violently was called Bạch Long Vĩ island (Bạch: white-color of the foam made when Dragon's children wriggled, Long: dragon, Vĩ: tail), present-day Tra Co peninsula, Móng Cái.
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| we stood with lots of people and watched our passage into the bay and through the islets |
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| arriving at the city |
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| the huge ferris wheel and cable car line that we visited on day 2 |
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| the cable car can be seen in this pic |
We did an extra excursion to kayak in Ha Long Bay. It was a wonderful experience! We highly recommend it if you're ever there.
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| our kayaking path - so cool with the cave passages! |
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| through the cave and inside the enclosed grotto (is that the right term?) |
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| it'd be a hard climb if we couldn't pass through the cave opening |
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| see the fishermen? |
This is the famous Kissing Rocks or Kissing Chickens. Why they're famous and think they look like chickens together? I don't know. I don't fully see it. The boats have to take turns sitting in the right spot to line up this kissing rocks view. All of the other beauty is so much better than this apparently iconic spot.
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| local party ships with loud music and crazy lights near our cruise ship |
Oh no, the realization kicks in that this was the fifth port and the trip was almost over.
...but first, another day in Ha Long Bay!
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