Kissing what??!!

Today one of Gavin's friends was done with the conference early in the morning, so I agreed to go on another afternoon cruise of Halong Bay with her. After lunch, a bus picked us and a Swiss couple up at the hotel and took us to a small cruise boat dock nearby. I noticed right away that this boat was significantly less luxurious than our previous cruise...

Our cruise boat for the afternoon, not as luxurious as the last one. I call it the SS POS. :)

We were herded on the boat, and quickly realized that nobody on the boat spoke any english, so no tour guide this time! The afternoon tour was basically a condensed version of the cruise that we had taken on the Starlight Cruiser, but we stopped at different areas. Our first stop was the Dong Thien Cung cave. The boat crew dumped us on the dock without a word and gave us no indication of how long we would be at the cave. :) We were definitely not the only boat there; the whole place was flooded with tourists, but it was still beautiful.

Dong Thien Cung cave in Halong Bay, lit up like a disco. :)

 

Another view of the Dong Thien Cung.

 

Stalagmites that look like cauliflower.

 

Note the tourists going up the stairs, with the FAKE stalagmites as the railing! :D

After the cave trip, the boat carried us to an atoll for kayaking. This time we managed to get the crew to tell us we had 40 minutes to kayak. We had to pay an extra $6 apiece to sit on the kayak, and some of the other stubborn tourists tried to bargain the price down and were refused, so they stayed and sat on the boat. This area actually had two atolls next to each other, so we got to kayak through both! The water was very shallow in these atolls; we were able to touch the bottom with our paddles and ran ourselves aground once on the way out. :)

Carolyn and I in our kayak.

 

A woman on the dock untangles her fishing nets.

After kayaking we got back on the boat. We heard the boat engine start, and one of the Swiss couple from our hotel said "I hope we are not leaving, my girlfriend is still on the dock..." And right after that the boat began to pull away! The guy yelled to his girlfriend to come get on the boat, and she came sprinting from the bathroom as we all tried to get the crew to go back to the dock. The girlfriend jumped the 6-7 feet to the boat and clung to the side, and her boyfriend and another passenger had to help pull her aboard, while our useless crew just watched. She lost a shoe in the water, and a helpful stranger on the dock dragged it to shore with a rope then winged it as hard as he could to the boat as we continued to pull away, so she got her shoe, too!

We drove a more scenic route through the karsts back to Halong City. About halfway back we paused in front of a rock formation where several other tourist boats were taking pictures. Our non-helpful crew didn't tell us what we were looking at, so we were left to wonder what was special about this rock formation. (Later at the hotel I researched the rock formation, and I found out they are called the "Kissing Cocks!!!!" :D I assume they mean rooster, rather than the Urban Dictionary definition, but the formation didn't look like either to me... :) )

More karsts.

 

A barge carrying logs floats through the bay.

The "Kissing Cocks" I mean "Rocks."

We arrived back at the hotel right as Gavin and the others were done with the conference. We headed to the Royal Halong Hotel right next to ours to have dinner at the #3 recommended restaurant on Trip Advisor, the Nah Hang. This was upscale Chinese food, and we were able to order a "less adventurous" dinner than last night. It was family style, so we ordered several dishes to share, including delicious beef in black pepper sauce, chicken and "black fungus" (=mushrooms :) ) and a few of the ubiquitous fried noodle dishes. However, if we had felt like ordering something more adventurous, there were plenty of options, such as Stewed Evil Chicken, Shark Fin Soup, something with Frog Ovum, etc...

After dinner, we all retired to the hotel. Thankfully, tomorrow is our last day in Halong City, and we will return to Hanoi!

 

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