Today was the day I've been waiting for the entire cruise so far. The preceding ports have been wonderful, but I've really anticipated seeing Halong Bay. As this was a tender port, I had arranged for our 50 person group to meet at 6:30am in the Ocean Bar. With 50 people to 'cat herd' I wanted to make sure all were present before 7am when tender tickets were issued. Everyone showed up on time and I assigned a person as the lead for the other two boats. 5 people didn't make it for sickness reasons, but they were still on the hook for the tour cost. When tour tickets became available, I procured the tender tickets and we were all put on the first tender except one person who forgot his Vietnam landing card and had to take a later tender.
The dock at Halong is essentially a small barge that's run aground on a sloping landing. There is what seems to be a new cruise ship dock under construction. Once we were on the land, we waited a bit for our tour guides and finally Boat #3's guide showed up followed by #2, and finally my Boat #1 guide, Nguyen. With only about 15 persons per bus or junk, it was a nice size! It was about a 10 minute ride over to Phuong Tuan Chau Island and the departure terminal for our junk boat ride for the day.
The junk boats are converted fishing boats and look like they were built in the time of Noah. Each appeared to have a metal hull but the superstructure was built of what now seems to be very ancient wood. The engine is below deck in the stern and its noise was of no issue during the cruise. Throughout the day there was a lady trying to sell all manner of tourist items including jewelry, fans, purses, paintings, and tapestries. We were free to wander the junk except when docking when we needed to be in the main cabin.
Each group boarded their junk and soon we were off. Each junk had two levels: the main deck was enclosed with tables and chairs and restrooms. The upper deck was a viewing platform and was a lovely way to see the scenery. Throughout the day we only cruised at about 6 miles per hour, and none of the boats in Halong Bay created any significant wake. All the landings were accomplished by pushing headfirst into the docking area and we alighted off the squared off bow. There was an assortment of various sized boats ranging in size from 200-300 person tourist boats filled with Korean and Chinese tourists to little single person fishing vessels as well as high speed speedboats filled with Chinese tourists.
It was a hazy day and the islands looked like an Ansel Adams paintings with the ghostly shapes of the rocky sillouettes being quite scenic. All day we wandered throughout the islands stopping to climb the tower (400 plus steep steps!),visit the immense caverns, served an immense lunch with a choice of a soft drink, beer, or water, a pearl farm, and concluded with a hand rowed sampan ride through a limestone cave. To the delight of Asian tourists on other vessels, we sang choruses of 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat'. And all too soon it was time to head back to our port by sailing back through the magnificent rock formations.
We were whisked back to the port arriving around 4:30pm where my wife and I headed out to walk the Port and beach area. I found a barber and got a nice 100,000 dong or $5 haircut that was very nice. We wandered a bit further and decided to take a cable car ride at Sunworld (owned by the same owner VinPearl which we encountered at previous ports. It turned out to be a Guiness Book of World Records holder in two categories: tallest tower at 619 feet tall and two cable cars each carrying 230 persons on two levels in each car. The cars were pretty impressive. The route made its way over the harbor to a large ferris wheel and very active amusement park with some very pretty lighting. We didn't have enough time to ride the wheel, so we made our way back to ride the Gondola to the port side area which also has another very large amusement park including a twister styler roller coaster. The night views were spectacular as the nearby suspension bridge was well lit as was the Ferris wheel and cable car as well as the ships in the harbor.
On our walk back to the tender port, we used the majority of the last of our Vietnamese Dong currency to purchase a couple of Coke Zeros. It was important to spend it as it's not exchangeable on the ship. The current exchange rate is about 22,000 Dong per $1US. We boarded the next to the last tender and departed for the 10 minute ride to the Volendam at 7:10pm.
After dropping off our backpacks and coats, we had a light dinner in the LIDO before going to the 8pm Main Stage show which featured Craig Richard, saxophonist and piano player as well as a finalist on American Ninja Warrior. Afterwards we watched the 10pm showing of a Mel Gibson movie, "A Year of Living Dangerously", which was about a young Australian reporter trying to live in Jakarta during the political turmoil during the reign of Sukharto.
Upon returning to our room, we received the official paperwork informing us of our room change to 1949 plus our "in transit" cards for being able to get on and off of the ship in Hong Kong as we'll be there for two days. So we'll have to pack our loose items and vacate our room by 9am. We will be assisted by housekeeping staff to make the transition easier. We've had to do this before so we're familiar with the process. And the day ended with the only bummer: we had to set our clocks ahead by one hour so we would be on Hong Kong time.
Tomorrow is our final sea day of this segment of the voyage. Except for packing it should be a pretty low key day. Stay tuned.
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