Our beautiful cabin on the Halong cruise.

We started the day off with complementary breakfast on the top floor of our hotel. The view from the restaurant was almost a complete 360. The breakfast was pretty good, but not overly memorable. We then grabbed our bags and headed down to reception to catch our ride to Halong Bay. I normally do not book packages through hotels, but the package we booked through our hotel in Hanoi worked out really well. We arranged ahead of our arrival to have a transfer to Halong bay, and then spend two days and one evening cruising on a boat through the islands of Halong Bay.

The ride to Halong Bay took about 3 hours, but it was comfortable and uneventful. We picked up three others groups of people along the way, so there were seven in our van for the ride to Halong. We stopped about a hour into the drive to get snacks and take a washroom break at a tourist centre.

When we arrived at the launch area, we were greeted with complementary drinks while we waited for the boat to arrive. Three more groups were added to our number, and we walked down the pier to our boat.

I think this is the only picture of the exterior of the boat that I took.

The group in total had 13 people and the boat had 8 cabins. The boat was just as I imagined, couldn’t have been more pleased with it!

The view from our room

First off, we cruised towards the island that we would be kayaking from. We sat up on the top deck, and watched the beautiful islands wiz by.

Kayaking was my personal highlight of the trip to Halong Bay, and perhaps the entire trip! It had been unseasonably cold in south east Asia before we arrived, and it was about 18 degrees celsius for our kayaking trip.

It may not have been warm, but it was warm enough for two Canadians to take a dip in the water! It’s not often that we get the opportunity to swim in a place like this!!! It had to be done!

Jives’ ice cold hands elicit terrifying facial reactions

Salt water is salty.

The rest of the evening we spent cruising around Halong Bay on the ship. We had an elaborate dinner, complete with a pineapple light show, and then we retired to our room to watch the scenery go by from the comfort of our cabin!

Light up pineapple!