We’re up bright and early for our long ride out to Ha Long Bay. After breakfast, our “Luxury Van” (kid you not, it’s literally written on the van and advertised as such, and it is pretty luxurious with captain’s chairs, USB chargers and wifi) picks us up and off we go on our 3 1/2 hour journey to Ha Long. There are 4 others in our van, a younger possibly German couple and 2 American ladies – one of whom has a wicked cough of which I’m already fearful. The ride is uneventful, we’re all pretty much in our own little world. We make the obligatory stop at the craft outlet and take the obligatory pictures of Sunny on the statues…
Then clamber back in the van for the remainder of the journey. It’s fairly uneventful, until we are stopped by the police for some reason. It’s not the driving, our driver is awesome – he’s quite adept at avoiding scooters and oncoming traffic, and passing slow moving vehicles. And he’s not speeding, that’s for sure. Nobody drives really fast here, I think because they all drive crazy and you have to be prepared for defensive maneuvers every minute you are in the car. Whatever we’re stopped for, the police finally let us go after the driver has given them tons of his paperwork. And we’re off again, only to almost get run over by a truck that doesn’t want us to pass. Craziness!
We finally arrive at the dock, safe and sound, and are dropped off at the waiting area and grouped with the rest of our shipmates – a pretty nice group (as it turns out) of 10 Americans, 3 French, 2 German (we think), 2 Aussies and 2 Brits. After a rather long wait, we’re the last to leave the staging area, but really, who cares? We’re all going the same place and they’ve got these things timed out so we’re not going to miss anything. We don our life jackets and board our little “tender” to go the short distance to the Dragon Legend – our home for the next 3 days.
Once aboard, we get out little safety lesson and an overview of what we’ll be doing on our 3 day cruise. Then we are assigned our cabins and so we can freshen up a bit before lunch. We are in 303 – at the front of the ship – which would normally be a problem, but I don’t think we’ll be encountering any rough seas on this trip, so we (read: I) will be ok. And wow, the cabin! It is totally cool. The main bedroom area is a huge space with a king size bed, a sitting area with picture window and this really neat little table filled with sand and shells. The bathroom is enormous with a large soaking tub next to more picture windows so you can soak and watch the Karsts slide by. There is a mini-fridge/mini-bar in the closet and all the comforts of home. Perfect.
The views from the windows are fantastic as we start sailing through the bay.
As we head upstairs for lunch, we stop on deck to take a few pictures. It’s pretty chilly, so we probably won’t be using this area much, but it is lovely, and would be very attractive in warmer weather.
Because of the weather, we are eating inside for lunch, which works perfectly for us. The tables are set and we grab a two-top by the window so we can watch the scenery as we are eating. Lunch is a 7 course affair – yep – 7 courses. We will not go hungry. Spicy & Sour Shrimp soup, Green garden salad, Steamed prawn with lemongrass and ginger, Mango chicken, Steamed sea bass, Steam chayote with peanuts, rice and dessert. All beautifully prepared, plated and served. It's quite the feast.
As we are eating, our tour guide, Long comes by to ask which excursion we’d like to do this afternoon, kayaking or the sightseeing boat. We of course choose kayaking, as we’ve done it before and it is cool to be able to paddle so close to the karsts. Plus, I bought these water proof phone holders specifically for this trip, and I want to try them out. So, after lunch, we go back downstairs, watch more beautiful scenery out our window (along with the Vietnamese statues on the windowsill)….
….change into our shorts and flip flops and head back to the launch for our excursion.
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