Halong Bay

We spent the past three days on a tour of Halong Bay. This is one of those areas you CAN try to see on your own but is actually cheaper and easier to see on a guided tour. We spent the first night on an Indochina 'Junk' boat, which slept 16 very comfortably. The engine ran all night, which for me was a calming purr but there were others not so peppy the next morning. On day two we explored Cat Ba Island National Park with a guide who was clearly on drugs. He was very entertaining. I think he may have been convinced that he was a creature of the jungle and not human. He had me laughing on multiple occasions as he scurried up vines and sat twitchy on rocks making strange noises. Again, some members of our group weren't impressed. One Frenchman sat next to us when we got back on the bus and whispered, "Did you see the size of that guys pupils?!"
We were given free time to explore the rest of the island, so naturally we rented a motorcycle and packed our spelunking gear. The first cave we found was behind someones house. We paid 75 cents to have an eight year old girl unlock the gate protecting the cave. It was an impressive cave. Several huge chambers and lots of small unexplored nooks and crannies. Amazing how your adrenaline kicks in when you're inside a mountain and the only person who knows it is probably playing with a doll eating cookies.
The second cave we found was Hospital Cave, guarded by a local man named Ba. If you have never heard of this cave, it is worth googling. It was built during the Vietnamese-American war as a bunker/hospital. It has 17 rooms burried inside a mountain, complete with a swimming pool, ping pong room, cinema, and many rooms for sleeping. Ba was actually stationed in this cave in 1979 during the Chinese occupation.
After the tour we stayed at Ba's house at the base of the cliff and taught him a few English words he had been trying to figure out while we drank tea from shot glasses.
All in all, a great way to spend a couple days. We are back in Hanoi now, about to hand our passports to a tourist office to get our visas renewed for another month. I'll try to post more pictures soon.