We had decided that it would be fun to take a cruise in Halong Bay for Christmas. We signed up for the two day, one night cruise so that we would be on the boat for Christmas Eve. We packed all of our stuff into one bag so that we could leave the rest of our stuff at the hostel since we would be returning there for one additional night after the cruise. The van picked us up around 8:30am and we started on our 3 1/2 hour journey to Halong Bay. We stopped at one point for a 20 minute bathroom break, during which time we could wander around a huge local craft market. Unfortunately our bus did not return for about 45 minutes which was really annoying and put us behind schedule. Our guide apologized, saying they needed to take care of some business that took longer than expected, but we were all still pretty annoyed.
When we finally arrived, we took a small barge over to our boat. I thought it was hilarious that any time we were in a boat, we had to wear life jackets but we complied even though shore was about 30ft away from us and you'd have to be completely retarded to drown at that point.
We were staying on the "Marguerite Junk" boat which was pretty nice. We had our own three bed room which was good so we could all be together. The boat had been decorated for Christmas and even though the Vietnamese don't really celebrate Christmas, you could tell they were really putting in some extra effort for their foreign guests. There were about 25 people on the boat in total and though I think they could have fit more people on it, you wouldn't have wanted them to. The space felt limited as it was.
We spent some time up on the sun deck as we cruised through the bay. Halong bay is so picturesque because it has thousands of little islands all throughout it which make a really interesting landscape to boat through. It was a little chilly outside but it was nice to lay in the sun.
Our first outing for the afternoon was to go to "Sung Sot Cave" or "Surprise Cave". This is clearly what all of the tours do as it was absolutely packed. The cave is a dead cave so it is completely dry inside which was a little sad to see because the formations could have become so awesome if they continued growing. You could pretty much touch anything since there was no concern about stopping the formation growth which was different from the other caves we've been through.
Next we headed to a beach on one of the islands. The beach was man made which we found a bit ridiculous. Plus, it was way to cold to get into the water. We did hike up to the top of the island so that we could watch the sunset from the top.
On the way up, we saw a bunch of monkeys that had been caged for the tourists. I felt horrible for them; they clearly wanted to get out and were shaking the bars in an attempt to free themselves.
The view from the top was really beautiful. You could see so many of the islands and the sun turned red as it neared the horizon and sunk behind them.
When we returned to the boat, our guides had put together a Christmas feast for us. It was truly an insane amount of food that they served us and it just seemed to be never ending. They brought out three different plates of bread rolls for just the six people sitting at our table! Both Jessica and I began to get upset at the insane amount of food they were giving us as it just seemed wasteful and made me feel like such an asshole when so many people in that country don't have enough to eat.
After dinner, we had a Christmas champagne toast and one of the crew dressed up like Santa and gave us little presents. It was really nice that they tried so hard to make it feel like Christmas. There were a bunch of Germans on the ship who were signing German Christmas carols which was also pretty cute. Even still, it never really felt like Christmas; I am so used to being at home for the holidays that nothing else would be able to give me that feeling. I had brought American Christmas candy that I was able to find in Australia and brought stockings for my sisters but sadly I forgot the stockings in my bag at the hostel so I had to wrap their candy it washcloths, lol. Oh well, at least I tried!
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