Upon the demand of my Vietnamese friend, I will feature my trip to Ha Long Bay about two years ago. I was in Hanoi just for three days. My Vietnamese and American friends had an engagement ceremony. Between that event and their wedding day, we squeezed in a trip to Ha Long Bay.

Date: April 4, 2014

They arranged our trip, so I don’t know any details about the tour company who took us there. I was with another friend and my professor. A van picked us up at our hotel. After more than an hour, we reached the port of Ha Long Bay.

Ha Long, which literally means “dragon descends into the sea,” is a bay consisting of about 2000 karsts and islets. These are mostly limestone that emerged in the emerald waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. Ha Long Bay was designated a World Heritage site in 1994. It was also chosen as one of the new seven natural wonders of the world.

We went first to the nearby cave, which is one of the caves of Ha Long Bay. I haven’t checked the name of that cave; no one also told us.

We got on board the boat that brought us around the bay. They served our lunch inside the cabin, where we met an old Japanese guy. He told us that Vietnam was the 95th country he had visited all his life. That’s a long, long, long way to go for me. As of today, I have only visited 15 countries besides my own.

We reached our destination, which was like a floating small village and port. It was where we would ride the kayak and go inside a karst formation across a small tunnel. There were three of us and the kayak can only accommodate two persons. I chose to go with my friend, and my professor went on his own. My professor gave up and went back because he found it difficult to ride the kayak on his own. We went inside the formation, and it was awesome. It’s bad my professor missed the beautiful sight.

After kayaking, we returned to the boat, which took us back to the main port. We called it a day and got ready for my friend’s wedding the next day.