We got picked up yesterday at 8:30 am and embarked on a scary four-hour bus ride. Even outside of the city, the traffic is insane. Theoretically, there were two lanes on the highway but you would never know it with all the congested motorbikes, cars, buses, trucks, and bicycles. Everyone seems to straddle the middle of the road until they’re honked at to GET OUT OF THE WAY. We had several almost head-on collisions.
After arriving at the port in Halong City, we were checked into our boat, the Byaha I, and were pleasantly surprised to find that we had been upgraded to a suite with a private balcony.
We anchored at a floating fishing village, which seemed like a touristy schtick, but was semi-interesting. Groups of people live out in the bay on these tiny houseboats and platforms. They create small enclosures with fishing nets where they raise different types of farmed fish. The concept was interesting but it was obvious that they were really milking it for the tourists’ benefit. I would compare it to the tours of the favelas in Rio de Janeiro because of the underlying exploitative qualities (even though I didn’t do those tours because it felt weird to me to go look at the bubble of poverty, just for the sake of looking).
That evening, we had a great dinner on the boat. After dinner, Bill and I got put on the spot when the cruise manager announced to everyone that we were on our honeymoon, and we were forced to get up and blow out candles on a “honeymoon cake” and then dance in front of everyone!!! I guess it’s a bit ironic since we did everything to avoid a “first dance’ at the wedding and ended up having to dance in front of people anyway!!
This morning, we woke up pretty early and went to explore the “Surprise Cave.” I’m going to keep this PG and let you see the surprise in the pictures below!
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