*Transcribed Journal Entry Day 07* 26.12.2010

6h00 - I woke up early today, I had a hard time sleeping last night.  Mostly I think out of anticipation for going to Ha Long Bay.  I got ready and left Philippe and Ville sleeping while I went upstairs for breakfast.  A simple breakfast of toast, jam, pineapple and coffee before heading downstairs to check my email and update my blog.  Around 7h30 I went back to the room and Philippe and Ville were getting ready for breakfast.  Once we were all settled and paid for our stay, we waited for the bus to pick us up to go to Ha Long Bay.  The bus was around 30 minutes late, and we were the last three to board.  In total twenty of us went on the same bus and cruise.  The drive took about 3.5 hours with a 20 minute rest stop halfway there.  Once at Ha Long Bay there were dozens of buses and hundreds of tourists milling about waiting to board their boats for a tour of the Bay - designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  In the harbour, perhaps 100 or so boats waiting to take on tourists.  We had to board a small craft which ferried us about 5 minutes to our boat, the Ha Long Dragon Cruise.  The Harbour itself is nothing impressive, quite congested with boats and overpowering diesel fumes, but once out in the open waters the surrounding area quickly began to impress on a scale I've never seen.  Island after Island rising from the sea, seemingly all interconnected.  Likely this is the case if you were to look underwater...  In total, there are about 1700 islands in this Bay.

The staff serve us lunch, a feast of various local seafood and vegetables, rice, chicken, and watermelon.  We then go to our cabins to drop off our luggage and tour quickly the upper deck of the boat.  I quickly realize that this is where I'll spend most of the night as it has several sun chairs and an open top, perfect for star gazing come nightfall.  The itinerary for the rest of the day is to check out an island that has a massive cave, sea kayaking, dinner, then squid fishing and free time for the rest of the night.  The island we land on ends up having perhaps the largest cavern system above ground I've ever seen.  There are four chambers in total, each one progressively getting larger until the last one perhaps 300 metres deep and 100 metres wide.  The stalactite formations are quite impressive.  Its quite dry inside and warm too, quite unusual for a cave...

The sea kayaking was just after the tour of the cave.  I team up with Ville, and Philippe teams up with an Aussie we've met on the boat, Faiz, who's traveling solo.  Ville takes the pilot seat in the rear of the kayak and we decide to row to an island with an arched cove, however once we reached the shore, we quickly realize that the ground is too rocky and full of broken glass that its no good for walking around on in bare feet.  We get back in our kayak and do a tour around the far side of the island before heading back.  Once back on our ship we pull up the anchor and head away to our resting spot for the night. 

The crew serves us dinner, chicken, pork & veggies, calamari, fish, prawns, rice and pineapple.  Shortly after dinner, we have a go at squid fishing.  By now its about 19h00 and its already been dark for about an hour.  Not being too interested in catching squid, I give it up to head upstairs to check out the stars.  So far out to sea with no city lights and a crystal clear sky make for unbelievable starwatching!!!  Shortly afterwards, there are cries and shouts from the mid deck and one of the other tourists, Antoine, from Calgary has hooked a squid!!!  Apparently the trick to catching it was that one of the Vietnamese crew put a red plastic bag over the light which was shining in the water and that attracted the squid to the surface.  After taking a few great closeup shots of the squid, I try my luck again and strike up a great conversation with Antoine about life in Vancouver vs Calgary, hockey, life, politics, traveling around SE Asia... After a while, he goes back to his girlfriend, and I rejoin Philippe and Ville upstairs to get a few more glimpses at the cosmos.  We were easily able to see Cassiopeia, Orion, The Big Dipper, and Jupiter and Uranus (so close to each other, they actually looked like one bright star). 

At 22h00, we all call it a night and get ready for an early start tomorrow as sunrise should be at about 6h00.


Sidenotes:  On board the cruise with us are 4 French (2 couples), Faiz (Australian), Antoine and his girlfriend (Canadian), a Swedish couple, 4 Asians and a German and Vietnamese couple.