Ha Long Bay by Alison

I went on an overnight boat trip on Ha Long Bay. It was my first overnight boat trip. It was very exciting. First we had to all meet at Kangaroo Cafe the place that organizes the trips. After we were all settled a bus came and picked us up and we took a 3 hour ride to Ha Long Bay City. It was very boring so Maya and I listened to my dad's I pod. My mom gave us some gum. Finally we were there. We had to wait a while in a line. Then after it seemed like an eon the boat finally came. It had three stories including the top deck for sightseeing, the dining room where we ate all our meals, and the bottom deck where we slept.












It was not at all like Horsetooth Reservoir because it has lots of giant limestone islands sticking up from the water. Legend goes that a giant dragon made the islands from thrashing around trying to get to the sea. Long means dragon in Vietnamese (and Chinese). Another thing that is different from Horsetooth Reservoir is that there are floating villages. People live there making a living fishing and sending it to the mainland. Even dogs live on the floating villages! Some villagers have little boats that carry items such as bottled water, chips, soda, beer and other things. They try to sell this to the big boats passing by. You can learn more about these villages on from the National Geographic Kids - go to the video tab. http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Places/Find/Vietnam








We hung out for awhile and finally got to one of the little islands and climbed all the way to the top. There are more than 400 steps. It was very tiring, but finally we reached the top. There was a little temple at the top with a pretty view.



When the boat came back to the island we got on it and sailed farther away from the island. Three guys jumped off the top deck of the boat. Their names are Justin, Luke and John. It was very funny to watch. One guy did a flip, another dove, and one just did cannonballs. The funniest to watch was when they all jumped off at the same time. Then my dad climbed to the very top and did the triple Lindy (not really). He said the air was too cold. What a wimp!

The rest of the evening we just relaxed and sang a little Karaoke.

The next day we went to the Amazing Cave after breakfast. It really did earn its name. We walked down some steps and through a path. What was really cool is that we did not really see a lot of stalactites and stalagmites. Also, there was no echo. It was very beautiful.



When we went back to the boat we sailed back to shore. We took that some long bus ride back to Hanoi.