Floating fishing villages, Kayaking through and under karsts, Endangered Langur monkeys

For a change of gears and in total non-Kara and Fallon style, we booked a tour of Lan Ha and Ha Long (Descending Dragon) Bays for the day. These legendary beauty of the bays are renowned UNESCO World Heritage Site sitting Gulf of Tonkin. Going with a tour group is really the only way to get out into the bays. So, we resigned ourselves to being part of a group and enjoyed a day that was free of having to make decisions or be responsible.

It stormed all night and was still raining cats and dogs in the morning as the typhoon weather pattern continued. Maybe not ideal weather to go for a boat cruise with kayaking and swimming, but we embraced the opportunity despite the weather. 

The Ha Long Bay legend states that as VietNam developed as a country, invaders from nearby countries fought the Vietnamese to gain control. The Jade Emperor, the ruler at that time, called the Gods to assist in defeating the enemy. A family of dragons were sent from the Gods to defend the country from these invaders and to protect its people. From the mouths of the dragons, jewels (pearls) spewed out and were formed into islets. These islets then formed a great wall to protect the Vietnamese from invaders.

As the invaders' ships sailed into Ha Long Bay, they crashed into the islets and the fleet behind them, who could not stop suddenly, crashed into front ships. After such a successful defeat the dragons made the area their home. Ha Long Bay was named after the Mother Dragon who had first arrived there, and her children settled in Bach Long, which mean the tail of the dragon. The dragons taught the local people how to plant crops and raise cattle and how to protect themselves in future.

Walking towards the meeting place for the boat tour in perfect weather for kayaking and swimming 🙄 - notice the small river of water running down the street

Getting on the bus to take us to the boat 

The boat for our tour

One of the 1st things we saw on our tour was one of the floating fishing villages. Clearly, I was impressed by them because I took about a zillion photos. Families live year round in the floating villages where they grow fish in these raft type things. They feed the fish until they are big enough to be sold which sometimes takes years. Families pay the government a yearly fee to live in the villages. Most of places we have visited in VietNam have a robust garbage collection system to keep things clean and the floating villages are no different. In fact, they are fined if they don't use the garbage collection system by the government. Unfortunately, there is a lot of trash in the bays, but we were told that much of it comes in from the South China Sea. In the floating villages closest to Cat Ba, children take a boat to go to school, but in the ones further out in the bays, children sometimes live with grandparents on the mainland in order to go to school.

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

Floating fishing village

As the boat moved along, we were able to admire the karst islands. They are incredible! In Lan Ha Bay, there are over 300 and in Ha Long Bay, there are 1000-2000. I, once again, took a lot of photos. When you look at the photos, they look like they could be of the same islands, but they are actually different. There are all sorts of cool names for them too like: Man's Head, Fighting Cocks, Wallowing Buffalo, Wading Ox, etc. While it seems like not a lot of things are regulated in VietNam, Lan Ha and Ha Long Bays are. People are not allowed to develop the islands which will hopefully preserve their beauty for generations to come.

Our ponchos have gotten lots of use. So.much.rain.

A floating fishing home

Floating fishing village

A floating home with a squid fishing net - they use lights at night to attract the squid.

All of the rafts that look empty have nets in them for growing fish. They get fed every day and when the fish are big enough (sometimes it takes years), they are sold.

Looking out at the shipping lane. The massive ships fly the flag of where they are going in the bow and the flag of the country they are coming from in the stern.

A fish trap - at high tide, fish swim into the lagoon and then get trapped at low tide.

Other folks on the boat tour. The two women in front were mother and daughter traveling together in VietNam. They were an inspiration.

So much delicious food 

After lunch, the boat sailed to where we would go kayaking. The kayaks were in rough shape, but no one sank. Paddling through the caves that are under the karsts was exciting. Most of them you cannot do at high tide. There was one cave that only Fallon and I went in - it was super low because of the tide and was impossible to go all the way through.

Kayaking into bat cave

You can see the bats on the ceiling of the cave

Selfie time as we exit bat cave

A really low cave that you couldn't quite go all the way through because the ride was coming in. There were parts that you had to lean back and push yourself along with your hands on the ceiling.

Kayaking into another cave

My phone was very unhappy because of all the rain 

Kayaking through another sea cave

After kayaking, we set sail again, this time towards a beach and sheltered part of the bay so that we could all swim. The jump from the upper deck of the boat was 3 meters down into 30 degree C (86 degrees F) warm water. Swimming to the beach, Fallon and I took turns who would go first - neither one of us water to get stung by jellyfish.

An island beach nearing high tide

Fallon jumping off the boat 

Kara diving

Kara jumping 

Kara and Fallon swimming to the beach. We took turns being in front because neither one of use wanted to encounter a jellyfish.

As the boat motored home, it stopped raining and the sun looked like it might even poke through the clouds. The colors in the bays definitely look different with a little sunlight,

A temple where the fishermen go to worship 

Our tour guide, Hang, was outstanding.

A fishing home complete with 3 dogs. The job of the dogs is to chase away the birds from the fish they are growing.

On the way back to Cat Ba Island, Hang told us as we passed a karst island that this was our last chance to see monkeys on this tour. Just then, I saw a tree moving and told Hang. He started jumping up and down exclaiming that there were langur monkeys in front of us and that it is super rare to see them. They are an endangered species with only about 65 individuals left in the world and there were 5-6 of them in front of us or about 10% of the entire population.

5-6 endangered langur monkeys

Langur monkeys!

Coconut milk ice cream bars for a post boat tour treat. I seriously think I could live off of these.

Despite being unsure about going on a tour, we both concluded that we were glad that we did it. We learned a lot from our tour guide, Hang, and it meant that we were just able to relax and enjoy the experience. For dinner, we went to Yummy 2 and the food might have rivaled Yummy 1. Once again, the meal cost less than $4 each. We got mango rice to bring home for breakfast the next morning because we were too full to each it for dessert, but we ended up managing to stuff it all in that night after all.