After a day in Hanoi recovering from our flight from Kathmandu, we drove four hours to Halong Bay along the coast of north Vietnam. A region with spectacular natural beauty, it is a tourist industry by itself. The pic is from the top of Ti-Top Island and the clips are time lapse from our ship…

While the geography is incredible, the efficiency in the tourism quite impressive. On the way coming and going between Ha Noi and Ha Long there were tourist venues that started with bathrooms, proceeded to artisan workshops, then to impressive shopping displays and checkout, and a final potty option before getting back on the bus on the other side of the building. Some pix of products (and an incomplete sample at that)…

 

Here are pix from the ship (in one I’m pointing to a lake that I could see on Google Earth but wasn’t evident from the ship, another shows a parking spot, another shows the tender we towed to take us here and there, and there are a couple fishing boats as well)…

 

After dinner, both nights we were on the boat, C & V fished for small squid with the help of a light. They each caught one and a few jellyfish. (They were fried up for lunch on our last day.) Check it out…

Twice we went kayaking and twice I didn’t bring my iPhone. Each time we saw the spectacular scenery up close, went through several natural tunnels, saw monkeys and birds, and didn’t always enjoy the challenges of paddling in a tandem boat. On the second day, I took a short paddle solo to get some pix. Here they are, and a few from the boat…

We enjoyed a couple nice sunsets on Halong Bay…

 

Misc. clips…

 

Study Questions:

1. Research Halong Bay (use link at top). Where is it? How did it form? What is its history?
2. Research Vietnam tourism. How many people visit Halong Bay each year? What is the environmental impact? Does tourism hurt or help the environment?
3. Research squid(s). Describe the different types, their life cycle, and their nutritional valude.