6:30 AM, beep beep beep,,, time to wake up and head out. The service here is fantastic,,,, we called the front desk for a bell captain and within 1 minute (no joke) there was a knock at the door. They loaded everything up and we headed down to breakfast. While at breakfast our butler showed up (on his day off), to say goodbye and to ensure our checkout went smoothly. In fact, he handled everything for us while we sat and ate breakfast,,, nice. After breakfast we met up with our guide (the car was already loaded) and off we went --- Ha Long Bay,,, here we come.
We drove about an hour and a half and stopped at a very touristy junk store for a pit stop. The store was about the size of a Walgreens with wall to wall arts, crafts and jewelry. The saleslady followed us around the entire place for 15 minutes. At no time was she more than 3 feet behind us. After a lot of shopping and price comparison we made a purchase --- 3 Heinekens. After that we were back on the road.
Another hour and a half later we arrived at Ha Long Bay,,, this place is beautiful! We stopped the car and we were greeted by the junk boat crew. They offloaded our luggage and led us to the tender parking. They loaded up the tender and we were off ..... or maybe not. The 15 HP Yamaha wouldn't start. Because my good friend Cary Dickieson taught me how to start a hot, old, overworked Yamaha outboard (he's the master), I knew what they were doing wrong. Finally, I had to jump in. Choke in, throttle to zero,,,, 2 pulls and she came to life.
Katie and I were both concerned about a night on a "junk boat" in Vietnam. After seeing how most of the people in this country live we didn't have very high hopes and even questioned what we are doing this far away from civilization. 5 minutes in the tender and we were at the boat. It was impressive yet quaint. The Junk boat was very old looking but seemed to be well equipped. Boarding the boat was an experience, we were greeted by an excited crew of 5 (6 if you include our guide), fresh flowers and a welcome aboard drink,,,, nice. Katie and I had full reign of the front of the boat, our cabin and the top sun deck. The crew quarters, galley, helm, etc,,, the entire back of the boat, was off limits. They gave us a little remote control to push whenever we wanted help from the crew which included the captain, mechanic, deck hand, chef and bar tender/server. We quickly reverted to our American ways of boating and asked for two Margaritas on ice.
As soon as we were settled they fired up the engines, lifted up the sails (the sails were just for looks as best I could tell) and headed out of the bay. It was neat to see all of the different junk boats in the harbor including 2 others from the same Princess Junk Boat Company. Everyone set sail together so it felt very much like the start of a regatta. After about an hour or so a few of the bigger junk boats broke off and about a half dozen of the 1 to 5 couple junk boats stuck together. It didn't take much to explore the boat but what we found was very nice. We had our own private bathroom (big weight lifted there) inside our own air conditioned stateroom. Very clean and very nice.
The scenery in Ha Long Bay is amazing, not anything like what we have seen before. It was very surreal, something out of Princess Bride. Rocks jettisoning out from the water, very deep salt water, an amazing sky line --- it looked like a big city. As far as the eye could see,,,, mountains and water,, beautiful. Katie and I felt like royalty sitting at our table for two, drinking Margaritas while enjoying the scenery and the cool breeze. Out of nowhere the server came with a fantastic lunch. At least we thought it was our lunch,,, it turned out just to be the first of five courses. We enjoyed the lunch ,,, the blue crabs were amazing. After lunch we moved to our own lounge chairs and quickly fell asleep.
After a quick snooze we woke to the boat setting anchor in a private little harbor. Katie and I, along with our guide, swam to shore and climbed some stairs to an amazing cave inside one of the rock formations. After exploring the cave for a while we climbed down a different set of stairs to the Kayak / beach area. Normally we'd expect to pay to rent the kayaks but on this trip everything was included. We ended up just sitting on the beach drinking beer. Another couple showed up at the beach, Carrie and Michael, after their kayak trip. It turns out they are doing a very similar trip as we are,,, they were at our hotel for the last few days and we are even on the same flight out Monday to Hui, same hotel there, same flight after that, same hotel after that. We chatted with them for 30 to 60 minutes and then headed back to the boat.
Once on the boat we headed down for showers and the crew set sail for our next destination. After our showers, and feeling very refreshed, we headed to the front of the boat to relax, enjoy some wine and read. About an hour later we arrived at a private lagoon and dinner was promptly served. The dinner was amazing,,, not necessarily the food (which was good), but the presentation. The chef made each serving look so special,,, by far, our favorite was a junk boat carved from a watermelon with sails made out of carrots. On the sails were our names (definitely check out the pictures). For dessert the lights dimmed and the entire crew came out clapping. They had a cake with lit candles that said "Happy Honeymoon" --- so nice. We insisted that the crew stay for cake and beer,,, they reluctantly obliged. During that time we insisted they stay with us to hang out,,, again, they reluctantly obliged.
The crew moved to the front of the boat, sat down and, through our translator, Katie and I started asking questions. To break the ice I asked a lot of nautical / captain related questions. The crew then started asking us about America, how to make money, how long we've been together, about our wedding, etc. One of the crew members ran to the back to grab a guitar and they started singing us songs about their country. They asked us to sing for them,,, again, we had to decline. They asked if they could get back to work because they had a lot to do before they could sleep,,, we said no problem provided the captain stay to teach me to tie a new knot. It was hysterical, we were at this one knot for an hour --- Katie has some great pictures / video of it.
After that we stayed up with our guide drinking wine and teaching him American phrases he didn't learn in school, such as "It's 5 o'clock somewhere", "You get more bees with honey" and "Beating a dead horse." We also shared dumb jokes,,, a big shout out to my father and to Joe Farrell for an endless supply of dumb jokes. Then.... bed time,,, the room was so cool and comfortable,, we were both very glad Admiral Travel suggested the Junk Boat….
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