Halong Bay . Vietnam

There is no much I could say.
To get to Halong Bay you have to take a tour, ideally from Hanoi. There is no other way to visit.
You bargain for a medium package, get on bus, then on the hotel boat, do some boating around, shoot some perfect pictures (not hard at all), visit a cave, pay for an extra tour with a small boat, socialize with the other tourists on the hotel boat, do kayaking, sleep on the boat (and pray not find a huge, packet of cigarette size, cockroach in you necessaire like some of "us" did... ), wake up, scream like a girl and jump from the upper deck, then boat back, take the bus back and think how lovely everything was.

I do not deny the beauty of the place. Its magnificent. Sometimes sureal and mystic. And the tour is nice and comfortable. But I was left to wonder. Did I get to see at least 5 % of that place? And do I have to really depend on disfunctional tourist agencies?

The experience is overrated because of the faulty organization and the bullying.
But then again, did I ever mentioned that vietnamese are genuinly friendly?

















asia tour . end of part 8 of 9