Halong Bay

Halong Bay, North Vietnam

Halong Bay, on the coast of Vietnam near Hanoi, consists of several thousand limestone islands spotting an area of several hundred square kilometres. I booked a two night, three day trip through my hotel in Hanoi (the vast majority of hotels are also travel agencies). It included a lot of floating around on the bay with cameras at the ready ... Despite the incredible beauty, the scenery proved to be a tough photographic subject because of the mist. Looks great in person, doesn't photograph well. But I took a lot of photos and some of them came out. We spent a night on the bay and then went to Cat Ba Island, the largest in the archipelago, where we hiked and kayaked and stayed another night before the boat and bus ride back to Hanoi.