[5D4N] : Day 3 - Bai Tu Long Bay

By : Chha (A-1420)

Time spend on Viola Cruise for second day is kinda short. I woke up early today hope to catch the Sun Rise but due to there is Tai Chi session provided by the Viola Crew Member for tourist at Sundeck, i decided to just look out from my room windows, hope that i will be able to see the Sun Rise from here. After waited for 30 minutes, i eventually give up waiting, thinking that the Sun is hiding behind those big chunks of clouds, haha ! Disappointed, the sun is actually rising from the other side of the Cruise of which i won't be able to see from my room window unless i walk out to Sundeck area (T.T) .. wasted effort of waking up early in the morning.

After other tourist finish their Tai Chi we went straight for breakfast at around 7.00 am.

At around 8.00 am, we took the Tender out again to our first stop for today which is a Cave on an island at Bai Tu Long Bay.

The cave is a small cave with two partition which is a small cave and a bigger cave, haha ! It is dark inside the cave so it is kinda hard to take photo inside.

The cave is actually on top of a small hill, so you might need to walk up using stairs but the view from up here is really nice !

After visiting the cave, it is time for us to check out from our room at 10.00 am but we are still allowed to be on Viola Cruise as we still need to have our Lunch.

Before we start our Lunch, there is some interesting Cooking Demonstration by their Chef on some of the dish they prepared for us the day before. Examples are like the flower for the Prawn, the netting for the Fish and the Rose.

It was really eye opening on how good the Chef is with the knife and food, that is not all, we are allowed to prepare our own Vietnamese Spring Roll with guidance from one of our tour guide Mr Tony.

My Vietnamese Spring Roll looks so ugly, probably it is imported from Malaysia, haha ! I fail as a Chef .. ! I am better off staying home cooking Instant Noodles, haha ! *Mari Mari Maggie Soup Satu, Siapa Mau ?

Today we have ample time for Lunch because as we eat our Lunch, at the same time we are waiting for the Cruise to reach the Pier. This allow us to sit down and chat more with each other, haha ! After Lunch, it is time to bid farewell to Viola Cruise and Bai Tu Long Bay as we head back to Hanoi City.

Transport from the Pier to Hanoi City is provided by Viola Cruise and the journey takes about 4 hours drive. They will stop you as near as possible to your hotel in Hanoi.

Along the way, they will make one stop at the Production Workshop For Disabled People where you can buy some snacks, gifts, hand made items or even just to go to the washroom.

I went in to the Workshop and was really amazed by they make the picture by using only thread ! The picture is expensive in my opinion, but the quality of the picture is definitely worth the price you pay.

They take colorful thread like this and sew it on a piece of canvas (if i am not mistaken, correct me if i am wrong) and make wonderful picture out of it, really amazing !

The bus promise to drop us as near as possible to our hotel due to their concern on the traffic on that that because we reach Hanoi City at about 4.30 pm which is their rush hour or peak hour at that time but luckily the traffic was not that bad on that day so they were able to drop us directly in front of Hanoi Old Town Hotel which will be the place we stay for 2 nights.

After check in to Hanoi Old Town Hotel we went straight to look for food and found one shop selling Grill Fish at Cha Ca Street shop Number 14.

After dinner, it is shopping time ! haha .. I heard from the locals saying that there is Night Market every week starting from Friday Night until Sunday Night. It is something like a Weekend Night Market where they sell a lot of food, cloths and souvenirs. At the night market, streets are actually closed to avoid cars or motorbike from entering the night market area, this makes shopping here worry free, haha ! No worry about crossing the busy streets or being accidentally knock down by motorbike.

This night market is long and it leads all the way to The Hoan Kiem Lake which was very very happening at the time of our visit and i heard there was some special celebration there at the time, that is the reason why there are so many people there that night.

One of the famous lake in Hanoi is the Hoan Kiem Lake. The area around this lake is like a total different place of Hanoi, haha ! There are more higher class restaurant like KFC, Dunkin Donut, Cafe and lots more. The environment here is slightly different from those i see at the Old Quarter of Hanoi. It is definitely nice to take a long slow walk around the Hoan Kiem Lake while enjoying the nice view of the lake.