We were excited this morning when our tour guide informed us that the Halong Bay tour was confirmed for the next 2 nights.  Everyone we have met over the last 2 days have had their tours cancelled (understandably), so we are feeling quite lucky that it is all coming together.  A perfect start to Sandra and Glenn’s 30th wedding anniversary.  

We departed Hanoi at 9am and watched the change in urban density and typhoon damage over the next 2.5 hours.

Rice fields became more common and damage extended to structures rather than mainly trees down and the consequential damage that comes with that.  Many roofs blown off or detiled, and so much damage to the electrical infrastructure.

Once we arrived at Halong Bay we went though a pearling operation, from seeding to harvesting, and of course the opportunity to purchase.  Not surprisingly, for anyone that knows Sandra and I, we elected not to purchase 🙂 .

Then on to the port prior to boarding the tender to our accomodation for the next 2 nights.  The damage in Halong Bay is so significant.  As Bob said, it felt so wrong driving though areas of such devastation 3 days after a super typhoon.  However, it is clearly the desire of the locals and the business owners to get the tourism back on track to bring money back into the region.  I guess we are helping with that…..

The weather moved between drizzly and rainy for the bus trip to the bay.  Once we got to the port we boarded our tender and headed out to our boat and the weather just never stopped after that.  Regardless, the scenery here is incredible.  So easy to see why it is listed as one of the seven wonders of the world.  There was a period of an hour or so where even though it was raining steadily, I could hit the outside deck of the boat and take some photos, wiping the lens down after every shot.  After that it was a washout.

We did head out in the tender this afternoon to walk through a very impressive cave.  A capsized tourist boat was a sombre reminder of the last few days around here.  There was an opportunity for a little more photography in the rain from the cave before the heavens opened in absolute earnest and it has been torrential for the last 7 hours (currently 1130 pm here)!

Regardless of that, we have had a lovely time on the boat meeting and chatting with our fellow travellers, enjoying an amazing menu from the boat’s chefs and even enjoyed a demonstration of fruit carving before dinner.  Due to the carnage in travel itineraries, our boat with accommodation for 46 guests has just the 12 of us on this leg of our tour.  The service is exceptional.

Unfortunately we have heard this evening that the weather tomorrow is meant to deteriorate even more and all boats must be off the bay in the morning.  Most disappointing is that we will not get to kayak through a cave as planned first thing.  However, we are the first group to get out here since the typhoon and at least we have seen a little of the magic of the place.  Who knows, maybe we’ll squeeze in another visit enroute to somewhere in the future.

So tomorrow it is back to Hanoi again for another 2 nights.  The river is rising there as well so flooding of low lying areas may start to impact the city by then.

We don’t have internet out here at the moment as the phone towers were destroyed on the weekend so will save up and post when we hit civilisation again tomorrow night.