Domestic Goddess Travels: Halong Bay

We decided to take an over night trip to Halong Bay which is about a three hour drive from Hanoi.

With a bit of a rough start to our trip as our driver was an hour late we made the dock in time to get transported to the Jasmine Junk which we where sailing on while visiting the bay. The weekend was overcast which we had a bit of a storm on Saturday night but it didn't interfere with the sailing at all.

Over the two days we sailed on the bay stopping at a local beach for a swim, a visit to a floating fishing village and the last stop was a visit to a cave which was home to some large rock formations. It was a nice break away to see such a natural beauty of Vietnam.

I always find it interesting to read about the local legends in the different countries and according to local legend, long ago when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade, which turned into the islands and inlets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people defended their land and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, the dragons became interested in peaceful sightseeing and decided to stay to live here. The place where the Mother Dragon flew down was named Ha Long, the place where the dragon children attended to their mother was called Bai Tu Long island (Bai: attend to, Tu: children, Long: dragon), and the place where the dragon children wriggled their tails playfully was called Bach Long island (Bach: white the colour of the foam from the wriggling tails, Long: dragon, Vy: tail).

Some more information about the Bay is that Halong Bay is bordered on the south and southeast by the Gulf of Tonkin, on the north by China and on the west and southwest by Ca Ba island. The bay has a 120 kilometre long coastline and is approximately 1553 square kilometres in size. The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. The Bay is host to two ecosystems, a tropical moist, evergreen rainforest's ecosystem and a marine and coastal ecosystem. The islands are home to many birds and mammals including bantams, antelopes, monkeys and iguanas. In 1994 Halong Bay was listed as a World's Natural Heritage by Unesco for its outstanding universal aesthetics value.