In Halong Bay

And finally, I made it to the famous Halong Bay!

Like so many times in Southeast Asia, the bus dropped us off far outside the city. So everyone had to take a taxi to get to the city or the harbor.

I had chosen one of the overpriced tours of the bay. Dani and Lisa had advised me to simply take a boat to one of the nearby islands. The tickets are cheap and you still get a tour of the bay. (Thanks again!) ;-)

So off to Quan Lan! The island is not very spectacular, there is not much to do except eat and relax. I rented a bike and went to the northern part of the island, where I spent the day at the beach. There was no one else there.

At noon, I had lunch in a small village. I communicated with the owner of the restaurant using Google Translate the whole time, and it worked quite well. Some of her friends kept showing up and wanting to talk to me. Tourists seem to rarely find their way here.

Later on, I saw that she had secretly taken a photo of me while I was eating and uploaded it to Facebook. After that, I received a bunch of friend requests from all of her friends. :-)

The next day, I went back to Halong City and then on to Hanoi.