Fizz and Fade: Halong Bay & Hanoi, Vietnam

Continuing on our journey from Beijing...

We landed in Hanoi, Vietnam late at night and went straight to our hotel to get some sleep. We stayed at the Hanoi Glance Hotel, which was right in the middle of the Old Quarter, the most bustling neighborhood of Hanoi. The next morning we were picked up by our tour company and transported via bus to the Halong Bay docks where we would board our boat for the next two nights.

We relaxed on the sundeck while we cruised deeper into Halong Bay. The rocky islands that jut up out of the water everywhere are amazingly beautiful and majestic. It was easily one of the most beautiful places I had seen before.

That afternoon we ventured through Sung Sot Cave (Surprising Cave) and climbed up to an incredible viewpoint. The caves are enormous and have all colors of lights in them, so the landscape ends up looking like the moon or some other planet.

Viewpoint vista - in a little cove of the bay, this view was pretty surreal.

We had to wear lifejackets everytime we went out on the tender - it was pretty calm waters, but whatever, safety first and all that.

After the cave, we took out kayaks and paddled around the rocks and into a lagoon. Running all along the shores were tons of monkeys! They were so cute and looking for banana handouts, which some tourists actually came prepared with.

We had the GoPro floaty on, which means when taking the photos you can't tell if you are focused or not...still you can see the monkey forms on the shoreline.

Good thing I had a strong able-bodied man to help paddle from the back of the kayak!

The sunset and sunrise were beautiful from the boat, we jumped off the top into the water to end the day - sadly we didn't get pictures of that.

We woke up early to watch the sunrise from the deck, then had the Vietnamese coffee we loved so, so much. I even got Jeff the metal coffee filters and some Vietnamese coffee grinds for Christmas so we can re-make these in New York. Now just need to get the sweetened condensed milk.

There were lots of other boats in the bay, similar to ours. You can see them in the background here.

After breakfast we hiked up Ti Top Island to see the incredible view. It was nothing short of amazing, hard to believe the pictures are even real.

It was a long, steep way up, hence our glistening glow when we finally got there.

After the hike, we had some free time to swim around in the water. Can you see how much we used the GoPro selfie stick on this trip? Priceless purchase.

Had to enjoy one last beer on the boat as we sailed back to the docks. We were then driven back to Hanoi, where we had a few hours to take in the city before our overnight train left for Sapa.

I had read about Cafe Pho Co (spelled differently every time I saw it written) and that it had great views of the city and great Vietnamese coffee, two things we were definitely interested in. After walking past it twice, we finally found it and got our caffeine fix while overlooking Lake Kiem.