Bay of Descending Dragons & Floating Villages

Today is Sunday.  When we woke up, we were docked along an industrial dock in Hong Gai,Vietnam.  Hong Gai is in the North East region of Vietnam in the Gulf of Tonkin. Who would have ever guessed in a million years we would visit Vietnam ? Some on board have elected to take an 11 hour trip to Hanoi. We opted to spend time relaxing on a Junk boat in a bay which happens to be a UNESCO world heritage site.  Why travel anywhere else when a marvelous part of the world is right here? Halong Bay. It is currently nominated to be one of seven natural wonders of the world. This bay is famous for its 1,969 islands mostly made up of dolomite and limestone which were formed between 300 and 500 million years ago. These look like mountain peaks and rocks sprouting out all over the bay. The story is that many years ago a dragon plunged into the Gulf of Tonkin and created all the little islets by lashing his tail. You could spend days exploring the caves and grottos. We joined a group of people on a large Junk for about 4 hours slowly cruising this quiet bay watching life go by. The day was misty and a fog had settled in depriving us of its real beauty. But what we saw was eerie smooth water wrapped in clouds and mist with black rocks peaking up out of the waters. It was as if we were blindly following the black silhouettes of other Junks into the dense fog and off the ends of the earth. You could hear a pin drop for most of this trip. Three times, small merchant boats piled with colorful goods (or sparse goods) would pull aside and the children would try to climb into our windows to sell us pearls, bananas or apples. They always sent the youngest. We explored the bay, docked on one island to explore its caves,climbed thousands of steps into and out of this large lit up cave, and sailed some more in awe as we saw colorful floating villages along the way. These floating rafts have homes on them, homes with hammocks, gardens, animals, just like on land. It was so interesting to get a small glimpse of this unusual lifestyle.