Halong Bay

Kathy and I took an overnight trip to Halong Bay, which is in the very north of Vietnam near the China border and is a very striking place, deserving of its place as a UNESCO world heritage site (What with the stone pillars, Lijiang, Halong Bay and other, not seen, sites, UNESCO seems to have been very busy here in Asia, apparently they kept working after Ronald Reagan tried to get rid of them).

Halong Bay is unique for thousands of limestone islands, kind of bigger versions of the stone pillars in China, that dot a large set of connected bays. Kathy and I cruised the bay for 2 days on a modern junk called the Halong Jasmine. Very nice with air conditioned cabins and great food, I'd highly recommend it if you find yourselves in Vietnam.

The first picture gives a sense of the bay.

The second shows our junk amidst a bunch of islands, we had climbed 400 feet up one of the islands to get an overview of the bay (as with China, tourism in Vietnam can be a bit more physically strenuous than the American equivalent).

Sunset as we were cruising to our night anchoring point, the boat in front is the sister ship to our junk.

Sunset over Halong Bay, a beer in my hand, a tropical rainstorm coming up from behind us, life can be nice.

More later...