Flight ten. Not at all sorry to be leaving Hanoi.
Halong Bay is home to a few floating villages. This particular one is much less atmospheric than the one we visited in Cambodia, despite its stunning karst island harbour location, but it seemed a bit more of a working village. In addition to income from tourism, the residents fish and cultivate oysters for pearls.
View from our window: Charming II Hotel, Hanoi, Vietnam. 8:45 am, 08 December 2013.
View from our window: Treasure Junk, Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam. 7:20 am, 06 December 2013.
Sunset and sunrise in Halong Bay
We took a 2-night, 3-day excursion to Halong Bay and Bai Tu Long Bay aboard the Treasure Junk. The former is a World Heritage Site, but rather overrun with tourists; the latter is a bit more remote and quite uncrowded. We chose a kayaking tour so we could get up close to the soaring limestone karst islands.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas… …on Celebration Street in Hanoi’s Old Quarter. (Doesn’t feel like Christmas, though).
Food wise, our stay in Hanoi was all about street food: we didn’t eat anywhere fancy, but that didn’t mean we ate badly. Barbecued beef with noodles, herbs and papaya, deep fried dumplings and pasties stuffed with beef, pork or crab and veggies, fried cuttlefish, stir-fried beef and chips in gravy*. All accompanied by lashings of “fresh beer” at 25 cents a glass. Ambiance consisted of tiny plastic stools and tables in shop fronts and on the pavement, mopeds whipping on by. No meal for more than $4 a head, with a slight additional cost in worrying whether we may
Hanoi’s Old Quarter: bicycles, motorcycles, cyclos; anything and everything for sale, all grouped together; buildings and monuments, shops and houses.
A bit random: this is a wedding reception set up in the middle of the street in Hanoi on an otherwise non-descript Wednesday. Basically the same as your standard street food set-up, but with tablecloths.