Friday 1 January 2016

Sitting on the dock of Ha Long bay...

We were lucky enough to spend the last few days of 2015 (and of our travels, too!) on another majestic world heritage - Ha Long bay.




About 3.5hrs away from the capital, Hanoi, Ha Long bay is made up of over 3000 limestone islands breaking up the Golf of Tonkin.

The legend behing the name, that means 'descending dragon' is that the Vietnamese people had to defend themselves from enemies coming from the north... They asked the Gods to help them and the Mother Dragon and her children descended to help the Vietnamese. They spit ambers with their breath, killing the enemies and those ambers have turned into the islands and islets that dot Ha Long bay.

We also visited a Heaven cave, so called because it has openings in the ceiling... Where you can get to heaven!



We slept one night on the boat, unfortunately it was rather cold and foggy... But very impressive anyway.
The second night we spent it in the biggest island on the bay, called Cat Ba which means "women island" as once only women and children used to live there as the men were off to work or to war.

We are back in crazy Hanoi - with its sidestreet cafes and 5millions motorbikes before the very last few days, but here's a few snaps.






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