Just a quick one today, as the pictures more or less speak for themselves, and to be honest we didn’t do much apart from lie on the boat or lie on the beach on Monkey Island! We spent two nights and about three and half days in Halong bay, drifting slowly on the boat during [...]

We woke up at 7:30, ate breakfast, and got on our bus to Halong Bay. A four hour ride and we were on the Jolly Roger, our junk boat and home for the next 24 hours or so. From here we took about a three hour cruise through the cove where we put up anchor [...]

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan has allowed the northern province of Quang Ninh and the southcentral province of Khanh Hoa to set off fireworks on the occasion of their festivals this year. Each of both provinces will set off fireworks for 15 minutes and have low-range fireworks shows. The Halong Carnival 2011 in Quang [...]

Today we started by hopping onto a minibus to travel from Hanoi to Hao Long to get aboard a junk on Hao Long bay. The trip on the bus was a bit rough as we were in the very back and the roads were quite bumpy so by the time we got there, Ted at [...]

On the 15th we left the boat after breakfast and headed over to Cat Ba island across from our anchorage. This is the biggest island in Hao Long bay, probably about 30 by 50 kilometers. We took another minibus into the center of the island where we stopped for a bicycle excursion. While Carolyn slept [...]

People’s Committee of Quang Ninh Province coordinated with related agencies to hold a press conference to announce the program of Ha Long – Quang Ninh Tourism Week 2011 on April 1, 2011. Accordingly, the Ha Long – Quang Ninh Tourism Week 2011 will take place from April 28 to May 2, 2011 at the Bai [...]

The five-star cruise liner SuperStar Aquarius with 2,200 foreign tourists and crew aboard docked at the world’s natural heritage, Ha Long Bay, in the northern province of Quang Ninh on April 3, 2011. The visitors, mostly from China, were scheduled to tour around the Bay, drop by the Vung Vieng fishing village to get insight [...]

After having an epic layover in Guangzhou, I got into Vietnam at about 2 am. Got to the hostel and just immediately crashed. In the morning, I just wandered around Hanoi, booked a trip to Halong for two days and night train ride to Da Nang to follow. Hanoi is pretty dirty, hazy, buzzing with [...]

We haven’t had a decent internet connection in forever. I’ll try to get a little caught up… Hue In Hue we visited the Hue Imperial Palace, which was home to emperor’s from about 1800-1945. It’s like a city inside of a city…it has a huge wall around the entire area, which I seem to remember [...]

Ha Long Bay day 1 From seeing this place on TV, pictures on postcards, I had a fair idea what I was going to see. And like the pyramids of Giza, Petra, Angkor Wat, etc. I was really looking forward to experiencing it for myself. Not created by human hands this time though, Ha Long [...]