November 16th - 18th Hanoi and Halong Bay

We arrived at the Hanoi train station around 5 am. While we had the soft sleeper, best cabins available, we did not get much sleep.  The 4 person cabins had some AC, reading lights, pillows, blankets, complimentary water, crackers and tooth brushes along with slippers. The train rattled, shook, and screeched its way down the 9 1/2 hours with many stops along the way. We took a taxi to the Hotel L'Opera House and paid $86 for a few hours sleep until we could get into our booked room at noon. After we made that transition we headed out by taxi to the Ethnology museum which is a good museum with the various "mountainards" of Vietnam represented. We realized that after our 3 week trip focusing on hill tribe culture, we have still not seen it all! We highly recommend the gift store there on the premises and were sorry that we were going off to Halong Bay tomorrow as there was going to be a big handicraft fair at the museum tomorrow with the local craftsman all exhibiting and selling in their traditional dress. Several were checking out the museum while they were waiting their turn to register for their booth.

We headed next to the "old quarter" of Hanoi with its 36 narrow streets filled with shops. Each street sells a particular type of product.  We made for a store called Women's Craft Guild that our friend Martine had highly recommended.  She said to ignore everything on the first floor and go upstairs for the really interesting tribal items.  What a chaotic display to paw through, ask questions about, examine more closely and in the end make some purchases. We are going to need to buy a canvas suitcase to accommodate all our new purchases!  We had dinner at "Little Hanoi" restaurant which was not too exciting but was an air-conditioned place on a busy street corner so you could sit in comfort and watch all the madness outside. We were back at the hotel and in bed early for our early start the next morning.

Island of Halong Bay

Fishing sampan

We left our suitcase this morning with the hotel as we would be returning for 2 more nights and then walked to the Opera house to wait for the shuttle to Halong Bay at 7:15. Our travel agent had been informed that the Caravella did not pick up from hotels because guests complained of sitting in traffic while collecting various guests for over an hour so therefore all guests were to come to the Opera house.   Only the two of us were standing at the Opera house to be picked up....the mini van then drove all over the city picking up other guests. An hour later and 7 stops we were finally on our way.  The van stopped twice for two "shopping opportunities" for trapped tourists. Once at a handicrafts center with large marble carvings, embroidery etc and another quick stop at a pearl store.  

Dinner is lots of fresh shellfish

Leslie relaxing on upper deck

With the BB we sent an email to our travel agent, Topas travel to say we were disappointed with the shuttle.  Topas travel bugged Caravella for not sticking to the policy and we got an upgraded cabin for the night. Our cabin has a balcony, AC, decent bathroom with the shower and toilet included in glass together with the sink separate. Room is about 150 sq feet which is not bad for a little ship that can carry16 passengers. There are only 3 rooms on the second level like ours.  We boarded the boat around 12:30 with lunch at 1pm while we cruised out to the first stop, a cave.  Lunch was all seafood courses - those who don't eat fish would have been in trouble.  After a 30 minute stop at the cave, which David went into but Leslie remained on the boat, we cruised another 30 minutes into a throng of other boats where one could go swimming for 45 minutes or climb to the top of a hill. David was convinced to just sit on the deck of the boat and relax and enjoy the chaos all around, and the setting sun.

If lunch was fish, dinner was shellfish - which Leslie does not eat! It started with a shellfish soup that tasted like squid, then two large mussels each - David ate his two, but not Leslie- then, as we were hoping for some chicken, out came a plate with about 50 clams!  David ate his half, but asked for something that was not shellfish for Leslie - they brought her a fried egg finally.  Then a course of fish came!  Anyway, we will be "fished out" for a month or so.

The evening's entertainment was to be squid fishing, but we were not excited by the prospect and went to bed without trying to catch our breakfast.

Early AM embarking in rowboat to tunnel to hidden cove

Seashell lady in hidden cove

Returning through tunnel to our mother ship

Following a good night's sleep, we rose for a light breakfast (bread rolls, no fish,thank goodness) and climbed into a large rowboat to go through a tunnel under an island to see a hidden enclosed bay on the other side, where one old woman in a fishing boat was selling sea shells.  David bought a textile cone but noted it probably came from the Philippines! We glimpsed some of the small island monkeys at a distance, then returned to our boat to check out of our rooms, pay our bills, get a brunch at 10:30, cruise around the islands until we landed at 11:00 AM to await our nail-biting transportation back to Hanoi and our five star hotel.