No. 3 : The Amazing Surprise Cave

DAY THREE: Halong Bay

We had an early start around 7:00am.  Breakfast was a buffet consisting of various breads, bacon, sausage, eggs and Vietnamese coffee.  The Calypso cruise pickup came around 8:45 and we hopped on a bus filled with a bunch of other tourists.  Little did we know these would be the very same people we would come to know, love and care about.  When we left Hanoi it was pouring down rain and once we arrived at the harbor four hours later, they told us we might have to turn around and drive back to Hanoi due to the weather.  We waited it out with hundreds of other people before the weather cleared up and they finally gave us the go ahead.

One of the many junkboats in the bay.

These random people on the boat.  Don't they look like celebrities?

The next hour or so was spent enjoying the scenery and teaching Ryan how to sound more enthusiastic while the crew prepared lunch for us.

We sat at a table with Jerry&Vel and Steve&Janie, two lovely couples from South Africa.  After lunch we went somewhere called The Amazing Surprise Cave.  It was pretty amazing and perhaps even a bit surprising.  Enjoy the pictures.

View from the walk up to the cave entrance.

I was fascinated by the floating boat stores but frankly terrified of the women running them.  I discovered from the two I encountered that they were not into friendly bargaining and instead resorted to irritation, intimidation and scare tactics to get you to buy.  I discovered it worked.

 

After all the surprise and the amazement, we enjoyed dinner with a brother duo from Italy and a Canadian couple from Toronto.  Around 8:30pm we went up to the deck and I chatted with Michel, the Italian fellow, while Ryan and Michel's brother fell asleep in the lounge chairs.  At around 10pm Michel announced that he was going to head in and woke up his brother.  Once they left, I woke Ryan up and told him I couldn't believe it was already 3am.  Somehow he believed me and I allowed this lie to continue.  We went downstairs and decided to do some fishing off the boat.  Nothing was really biting and Ryan kept claiming he was seeing the shadow of a big fish.  Clearly he was imagining this.  I never saw any big fish.  However, I did see a squid and some glowing fish and something very very strange which I scooped up in a net and took a picture of.  For a moment we thought we had killed this strange creature (surely the last of its kind) but it eventually came back to life and swam away.  We were out there for awhile and I commented on how the sun was going to come up soon.  We finally went to bed and I told Ryan it was only 12:30.  I am hilarious.